The Assembly of the Republic will discuss, on the next 10th, two bill proposals, submitted by the Ecologist Party Os Verdes (Bill No. 885/XIII/3rd) and by the PAN – People, Animals and Nature ( Bill No. 1056/XIII/4th), to prohibit the marketing and use in Portugal of veterinary medicines that use diclofenac in their formulation.
If this substance – “to which there are safe alternatives” – is authorized and used in Portugal, it will have a “potentially devastating impact on several protected species of scavenger birds and also on ecosystems where they play an important role in disease control”, stresses the League for the Protection of Nature.
Diclofenac, which in livestock is used primarily as an anti-inflammatory and analgesic, "was responsible for the dramatic and abrupt decline of the vultures of the Indian sub-continent, which almost led to their extinction", stresses that environmental organization.
In Portugal, the General Directorate of Food and Veterinary Medicine (DGAV) is currently evaluating an application for marketing authorization for a veterinary medicinal product for livestock use containing diclofenac.
The Portuguese Non-Governmental Organizations for the Environment (NGOs) consider that, «in view of the best existing scientific knowledge, and respecting the precautionary principle, the request for commercialization cannot be approved, and the commercialization and use of these medicines must be definitively prohibited, avoiding the consummation of a real, imminent and critical risk for the conservation of several protected species in Portugal».
The NGOs also highlight the existence of "several effective alternatives to this drug that have much lesser impact on birds, so that the treatment of domestic animals is perfectly possible without resorting to the use of diclofenac and putting national ecosystems at risk."
Since 2014, national and international NGOs have been alerting the competent authorities to the possible impacts of this medicine on scavenger birds (vultures and some species of eagles), having appealed to the Portuguese Government not to authorize the use of this substance in national territory at the level of livestock.
Comments