Brazil Anvisa opens public consultation to ban paraquat

The Board of Brazil's National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) decided to seek public consultation to prohibit the paraquat active ingredient in the country. The proposal was published at the Official Union Gazette last Friday (10.09) and the deadline to send “commentaries and suggestions from the general public” ends in 30 days starting October 16.

"The proposal of the normative act will be available at Anvisa's portal and the suggestions should be sent electronically through the filling of a specific form available at the address http://formsus.datasus.gov.br/site/formulario.php?id_aplicacao=23005 ,” the query reads.

Anvisa guarantees that “in case of limitation of access to computer resources, the submission in written format should be posted to the following address before the deadline of the consultation: Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária/Gerência-Geral de Toxicologia, SIA trecho 5, Área Especial 57, Brasília-DF, CEP 71.205-050”.

The agency affirms that after the deadline it will promote the analysis of the contributions and, at the end, will publish the final results of the public consultation. At Anvisa's website, it already published the draft of a resolution banning paraquat: http://portal.anvisa.gov.br/wps/wcm/connect/c97678004a2658908b549b0b2c8a7317/CP+94-2015+-+Minuta.pdf?MOD=AJPERES .

The first article of this resolution decrees “to cancel the reports of toxicological evaluation of all technical products and formulated products based on paraquat and its respective salts, since the publication date of this resolution due to the framework of the active ingredient from the articles of the registration prohibitions. 3, § 6, "b", "c" and "e" of Law 7,802 of 11 July 1989. "

The third article ordains “to reject the claims of toxicological evaluation in progress at this agency with technical and formulated products based on paraquat in order to obtain the registration of products”. 

The fourth article requests to the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply that “suspends the imports of technical and formulated products based on paraquat and its respective salts since the publication of this resolution”.