Qualitative vs. Quantitative
Based on the proposed criteria, it appears that the qualitative risk assessment procedure could assign a risk rating of “high” to virginiamycin (VM) – even if VM does not cause human harm.
A quantitative risk assessment for VM and Synercid suggests that banning VM in 1Q-02 would have saved not more than 0.18 statistical lives in the whole US population over the next five years. Such a perspective is (a) Useful for decision-making; and (b) Missing from CVM’s proposed qualitative approach.