Japan MHLW to Designate 5 New Substances as Poisonous and/or Deleterious Substances

On 12 April 2013, Japan MHLW notified WTO 5 new substances to be designated under the Poisonous and Deleterious Substances Control Law (PDSCL), which is expected to be adopted on 1 July 2013 and enter into force since 15 of that month.

These newly designated 5 substances are shown as below:

Poisonous Substance	Crotonaldehyde and preparations containing this substance Methyl chloroacetate and preparations containing this substance Tetramethylammonium hydroxide and preparations containing this substance Ethyl bromoacetate and preparations containing this substance
Deleterious Substance	2-Diethylaminoethanol and preparations containing this substance more than 0.7%

The PDSCL was enacted in 1950 to control those poisonous or deleterious substances from the point of health and hygiene. The poisonous and deleterious substances are judged based on the knowledge in an animal and the person by “Criteria of Poisonous Substances and Deleterious Substances”. There are three types of chemicals under the PDSCL.

Poisonous substances
Deleterious substances
Specified poisonous substances

The manufacturers, importers or sellers of those substances must be registered, meet the prescribed standards for manufacturing or storing and obey rules on labeling or transferring. It is also required to provide MSDS. Specified poisonous substances are extremely poisonous among poisonous substances and are defined as substances which have high possibility to harm the person of use so they are controlled more strictly.