Welcome to the 1998 "Blue Book." This book presents the National Residue Plan for 1998. (For those reading this electronically, this document has been commonly known as the "Blue Book" because the covers of the printed version are blue.)

In 1997 the FSIS National Residue Plan was modified to move towards a system of residue evaluation more consistent with modern risk assessment principles. This was an interim plan, anticipated to be a first step towards fully developing the logic of a risk based system in future years. The National Residue Plan for 1997 was first presented to FSIS as a Final Report, (of an) Ad Hoc Task Force for the 1997 FSIS National Residue Program. This plan was continued, virtually unchanged, in 1998. The only difference is that some special projects scheduled in 1997 were discontinued in 1998. Therefore, an updated and slightly revised version of this task force report is included in this Blue Book as the National Residue Plan for 1998.

The system that was used in previous years to evaluate the priority for inclusion of different compounds in the annual residue plan was called the "Compound Evaluation System (CES)." This system ranked each compound using one parameter for toxicity and another parameter for overall exposure. Because of the past importance of this system, a list of compounds and their CES ranking is included in an "Historical Appendix." [This CES ranking is no longer in use and will not be included in future editions of the Blue Book.] Also included in this "Historical Appendix" are two other lists: 1) a list of all compounds that have been considered for inclusion in past residue plans, and 2) a list of the compounds that actually were tested for during the years 1972 to 1996.

This historical information continues to have great significance for the current residue plan. Many compounds not in the current testing plan have been cycled through the residue program in the past. As a general rule compounds were taken out of the program if no results were found above tolerance over three years of residue monitoring. Thus, the reader should understand that many compounds, otherwise of toxicological concern, are not included in the 1998 plan because testing in previous years produced evidence that these compounds are not present in meat foods.

The staff of FSIS, Office of Public Health and Science, Chemistry and Toxicology Division, hope that you will find this National Residue Program for 1998 to be every bit as useful and informative as it has been in past years. We would like to thank all of our predecessors for providing us with tables and information that they developed and that we continue to use

CONTACTS AND COMMENTS

An inter-Agency committee developed the 1998 National Residue Program Plan. The Emerging Issues Branch, Chemistry and Toxicology Division, Office of Public Health and Science, Food Safety and Inspection Service, U.S.D.A coordinated the effort, and is responsible for the publication of this material. Questions about the residue program should be directed to the Chemistry and Toxicology Division at: 6912 Franklin Court Suite, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-3700.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the many previous representatives from the FSIS Residue Evaluation Staff, who originally devised many of the documents in this edition of the Blue Book, and who made electronic versions of those documents available to Chemistry and Toxicology Division. Special thanks must go to James Walcott, Bharat Patel and Lula Wallace for their particular efforts. I also want to acknowledge the extensive work done by the members of 1997 Residue Planning Committee, especially that done by Aron Yoffe, who devised and provided many more of the documents found in this edition of the Blue Book. In addition I would like to acknowledge the help of Sharon Thomas, George Laugelli, Wendy Card, and Lawrence Tafoya who did much of the formatting, and re-formatting of this document, and Michael Hoffman, who is responsible for the final editing of this publication. As in most organizational publications of this size and history, I have undoubtedly missed specifically mentioning the work of many other individuals who contributed to the effort over the years. I apologize for all such oversights. Preparing this edition has made me understand how much effort has gone into the development and refinement of the Residue Program over the years.

David Soderberg
July 1998