The Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD) is inviting comments through a public consultation on the safety of residues of veterinary drugs in human food.
The consultation will run until November 30, 2024, and will focus on guidelines relating to the technical requirements for demonstrating genotoxic safety of residues of veterinary drugs in human food.
The VMD is an observer member of the International Cooperation on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Veterinary Medicinal Products (VICH), which is running the consultation.
It is inviting comments through the public consultation, but said it cannot respond to questions or comments directly.
The proposed draft document is available on the VICH website and comments are urged to be relevant to the specific guideline.
Comments should be sent to [email protected] and the VMD said it will compile and submit all comments to the relevant VICH expert working group for consideration.
Veterinary Medicine Regulations
The modernised Veterinary Medicines Regulations (VMR) came into force on Friday, May 17, with the aim of maintaining the UK as an attractive place to develop and market veterinary medicines.
The Veterinary Medicines Regulations of 2013 set out the controls on the marketing, manufacture, distribution, possession, and administration of veterinary medicines and medicated feed.
The Veterinary Medicines (Amendment etc.) Regulations 2024 were introduced in Parliament on the March 4 with the legislation made on April 25.
The regulations are a critical tool to help protect animal health, public health and the environment, the VMD said.
As part of the updated regulations, the UK government has increased restrictions on the use of antibiotics and antibiotics administered via feed.
Other regulations seek to reduce regulatory burden by facilitating the submission of one marketing authorisation application dossier and enabling common packaging to be used across the UK.
To provide stakeholders with time to ensure compliance with specific new or amended requirements, the legislation includes transitional provisions for some requirements, the VMD said.
“We continue to work with our stakeholders to help them implement the changes and to support their compliance with the regulations,” it said.
