Limiting the retroactive effects of the note to Rule 61 of the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria.

At the plenary session of the Judicial Commission at the 1999 IUMS-BAM International Congress in Sydney changes were made to Rule 61 of the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria to prevent extensive grammatical or orthographic corrections to names and epithets that had been included on the Approved Lists, the Validation Lists and the Notification Lists. These changes were implemented by the addition of a note to Rule 61. However, that note appears to be retroactive and has an undesirable effect, appearing to prohibit some of the changes already published. Changes need to be made to Rule 61 to limit the retroactive effects of the note.