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Pesticide News Story: EPA Makes Prion Pest Determination and Issues Efficacy Data and Other Requirements
For Release: February 28, 2013
The EPA is declaring a prion to be a “pest” under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act and is amending the EPA’s regulations to expressly include prion within the regulatory definition of pest. The EPA is also amending its product performance data requirements to clarify that efficacy data are required for all products with prion-related claims. In addition, the EPA is announcing the availability of final test guidelines concerning the generation of product performance data for prion-related products.
Prions (“proteinaceous infectious particles”) are abnormally shaped infectious proteins that may occur in the central nervous system tissues of animals and humans. Prions can cause neurodegenerative diseases known collectively as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE). TSEs include:
- scrapie disease in sheep;
- bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cattle, which is widely referred to as mad cow disease;
- chronic wasting disease in deer and elk;
- kuru and variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease in humans; and
- similar diseases in other animals.
These diseases are always fatal in humans and animals alike, and there are no known treatments or cures.
The Federal Register notice of this action was published on February 28, 2013, and is available at Docket ID# EPA-HQ-OPP-2010-0427-0029. The rules announced in the Federal Register notice take effect 30 days after publication.
The final rules, the final test guidelines, responses to public comments and waivers or comments from the FIFRA SAP, HHS and USDA can be found at www.regulations.gov in Docket ID# EPA-HQ-OPP-2010-0427.