On or before September 1, 1985, the department shall, within the limits of available resources, prepare and submit to the Legislature a program for detecting and monitoring chemical and pesticide residues in processed foods. In preparing the program, the department shall do all of the following:

(a)  Establish a list of chemical and pesticides developed from a knowledge of chemicals used in the food industry in processed foods and from the 96 pesticides on the Department of Food and Agriculture residue scan, for which analysis will be done by the department. The list shall include an explanation of why the listed chemicals and pesticides were selected. The Department of Food and Agriculture shall cooperate with the department in establishing the list required by this subdivision. In selecting the chemicals and pesticides to be placed on the list, the department shall make use of the following criteria:

(1)  Chemicals that have been identified as having possible carcinogenic, reproductive, or mutagenic effects.

(2)  Patterns of use in California.

(3)  Quantities of use in California.

(4)  Chemicals appearing as residues in processed food because of environmental persistence or resistance to degradation under conditions existing in the processing, manufacturing, milling, or shipping of processed foods sold in California.

(5)  Chemicals that have the potential of chronic toxicity due to low continuous exposure.

The department may revise the list and is authorized to add or remove chemicals or pesticides based on relevant information that becomes available to it after the list has been established and based on its experience in detecting the presence of chemical substances in processed foods under the sampling and testing program developed pursuant to subdivision (b).

(b)  The department shall design a sampling and testing program that does all of the following:

(1)  Samples and tests processed food products that form a significant portion of the diet of the general population, and that may contain residues of the chemical substances on the list established pursuant to subdivision (a).

(2)  Provides for specific testing of individual chemicals on the list established pursuant to subdivision (a) when a chemical cannot be detected using multiresidue testing procedures and when the department determines that the chemical may be the cause of chronic health effects.

(3)  Lists the foods to be sampled, the stages of processing in which the foods will be sampled, the sampling frequency, and the techniques used in sampling.

(4)  A description of plans for sampling processed imported foods from other states and countries.

(c)  As used in this section, “processed food” means any food chemically or physically altered from a raw agricultural commodity by chemical, mechanical, thermal, or other processes.

(Added by Stats. 1995, Ch. 415, Sec. 6. Effective January 1, 1996.)