Sub-Groups of the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT)

ORGANOPHOSPHATES WORKING GROUP

The meeting of the group held at 10.00 am on Friday 17 July 1998 in Room 140B, Department of Health, Skipton House, 80 London Road, Elephant and Castle, London SE1 6LW.

AGENDA

1. Apologies for Absence

2. Minutes of the meeting held on 22 May 1998 - OPG/MIN/98/1

3. Matters arising

3.1 Working Arrangements - Oral Report

3.2 Companies Selling OP Products - OPG/98/9

4. Terms of Reference - OPG/98/5

5. Revised list of Questions - OPG/98/6

6. In the light of Item 5 Consideration of:

6.1 Organophosphorus Esters: A Review of Putative Chronic Neurotoxic Effects in Humans - *IEH Report

6.2 Neurological Syndromes of Organophosphorus Compounds: Goran A Jamal - OPG/98/4*

7. Case Reports of Alleged Suffers (Veterinary Medicines Directorate: Human SARs and Health and Safety Executive: PIAP) - OPG/98/7

8. Official Group on OPs: Report to Ministers - OPG/98/8

9. Dr Ray's Paper on Novel Protein Targets for Organophosphorus Compounds - OPG/98/10

10. Any other business

11. Date of next meeting

* Circulated earlier.

Secretariat
July 1998

NOTE OF THE SECOND COT WORKING GROUP ON ORGANOPHOSPHATES MEETING ON 17 JULY

The second meeting of the COT Working Group on Organophosphates took place on the 17 July 1998. A number of papers were discussed at the meeting and the terms of reference for the group were agreed. The terms of reference are

"To advise on whether prolonged low level exposure to OPs, or acute exposure to OPs of a lower dose than that causing frank intoxication, can cause chronic ill health effects"

The Chairman reported that he had written to a number of individuals and organizations known to have an interest in the subject, inviting them to give evidence to the Group. An advertisement had also appeared in the British Medical Journal. The scope of the call for interest has been widened to encourage as wide an input as possible and the deadline for comments has been extended to 1 September 1998.

Members discussed the 16 questions posed to the COT by the Official Group on Organophosphates (OPs) 1. The original questions from the official group had been refined following discussions at the first meeting of the Working Group and have now been separated into 5 different groups covering the areas of epidemiology, clinical signs and symptoms, consequences of different patterns of exposure, mechanisms and further research. Some additional questions suggested by the Working Group have also been added. Details of the revised questions will be made available after ratification at the next Working Group meeting.

The Working Group discussed the recently published Institute for Environment and Health (IEH) report entitled 'Organophosphorus esters: An evaluation of chronic neurotoxic effects' 2 and a paper by Dr Goran Jamal entitled 'Neurological syndromes of organophosphorus compounds' 3. Members of the sub-group asked to see the original references from both reviews before discussing the findings in detail.

A paper was presented to the Working Group on the data collected by both the Pesticides Incidents Appraisal Panel (PIAP) and the Appraisal Panel for Human Suspected Adverse Reactions to Veterinary Medicines on cases of adverse reactions to OPs. Information on the number of cases reported to PIAP involving OPs during the period 1989-1997 were presented. For veterinary medicines similar data were available for the period covering 1985-1996. Details of the number of cases associated with particular products were also available for veterinary medicines e.g. sheep dips, collars, sprays and there was some limited information on the symptoms reported. This information is available in the Annual Reports of both these groups.

The next COT Working Group meeting will be held on 17 September 1998.

References

1. Official Group on OPs Report to Ministers. MAFF Publications 1998.
2. Organophosphorus esters: An evaluation of chronic neurotoxic effects. Institute for Environment and Health 1998.
3. Jamal G.A. Neurological syndromes of organophosphorus compounds. Adverse Drug React. Toxicol. Rev. 1997;16(3):133-170.

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