Risk perception: A chemical industry view of endocrine disruption
in wildlife
S. Webb, R. Taalman, R. Becker, K. Onuma, and K. Igarashi
CEFIC European Chemical Industry Council, Ave.E.Van
Nieuwenhuyse 4,
B-1160 Brussels, Belgium;
American Chemical Council, 1300 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209,USA;
Japanese Chemical Industry Association, Kazan Building 3-2-4 Kasumigaseki
Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo 100-0013, Japan
Abstract: Manufactured chemicals are essential to the vast array
of goods and services that contribute to modern life. Their benefits
are innumerable, and society is entirely dependent upon them. At the
same time, there is an increasing awareness of the concept of environmental
impacts. The challenge is to achieve the appropriate balance between
the benefits and risks from chemicals, so that we all may enjoy the
benefits of chemicals without significant detriment to current and future
human and wildlife health. Ecological risk assessment is the mechanism
that allows potential environmental chemical exposure to be benchmarked
against hazardous properties so that risk is acceptable and environmental
health is not impaired. Chemical management decisions based on such
assessments are said to be risk-based. Within the context of environmental
risk assessment practice for endocrine disruption, industry would support
a position that:
- endorsed the risk assessment process;
- recognized that endocrine disruption is not an adverse effect per
se, but rather a potential mechanism of action;
- gave precedent to population-level effects instead of individual-level
effects;
- employed a tiered approach to hazard assessment; emphasized standardized
and validated effects testing methodologies;
- recognized that exposure per se does not necessarily constitute
a risk;
- considered relative potency (i.e., evaluation of the dose levels
and mechanisms producing toxic adverse effects and determining whether
the critical effect arises via an endocrine mechanism or another mechanism);
- benchmarked risk against loss of benefits; and
- evaluated risk within the context of overall risk from both natural
and anthropogenic substances with common modes of action.
To help address uncertainty surrounding the risk from Endocrine Active
Substances (EAS) to wildlife, the chemical industry -- via the Long-Range
Research Initiative (LRI) -- has implemented a research program aimed
at identifying and addressing knowledge gaps and establishing internationally
harmonized testing methodologies in cooperation with other stakeholders.
Details of individual projects within the current LRI research program
are presented.
*Report from a SCOPE/IUPAC project: Implication of
Endocrine Active Substances for Human and Wildlife (J. Miyamoto and
J.Burger, editors). Other reports are published in this issue,
pp. 1617-2615.
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