Cal Baier-Anderson, Ph.D., is a Health Scientist and Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Many of the screening-level hazard data being collected and analyzed under ChAMP that pertain to human health are derived from traditional laboratory animal studies.  The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) recently offered a "new paradigm for toxicity testing" in its 2008 report Toxicity Testing in the 21^st Century: a Vision and a Strategy.  Can ChAMP hazard data be used to facilitate the development of new testing strategies?  Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

This new post serves as a response to Charlie Auer's most recent comment responding to our critique of ChAMP.  (To see the whole exchange, start here, then go here, here and here.)  So far, this exchange has focused mainly on our disagreement over whether or not EPA is somehow required to do risk assessments under ChAMP.  At some point, I hope Charlie and others will engage on the substance of our critique - the serious concerns we've raised about the quality and validity of the ChAMP assessments.
  Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

[Earlier posts in this series can be found here and here.]

Over the past decade, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has pursued a voluntary program, the High Production Volume (HPV) Chemical Challenge, as a means to fill the enormous gaps in publicly available data on the hazards of the most widely used chemicals in the U.S. Using the Challenge data, EPA has recently begun assessing HPV chemicals under its Chemical Assessment and Management Program (ChAMP). But is ChAMP up to the job? Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

[The first post in this series can be found here.] 

Some in the chemical industry point to EPA's New Chemicals Program as a robust program, one that could serve as a model for reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).  Most recently, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) did so in its testimony at a recent House of Representatives subcommittee's TSCA oversight hearing.  So just how robust is EPA's program on new chemicals?  Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

As one who has closely followed the emergence of nanotechnology, I am sure I was not alone several years ago in welcoming what appeared to be a refreshingly new attitude among a broad range of stakeholders toward the introduction of this new set of technologies and materials.  Calls from my organization to "get nanotech right the first time" were echoed widely.  Perhaps the most frequently used metaphor, though, was that a "window of opportunity" had opened to do things differently this time.  But I increasingly fear that the window is closing. Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

It's been nearly a year since EPA launched its voluntary Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program (NMSP) - and over three years since EPA was urged, by a diverse group of stakeholders, to do so only in conjunction with the development of mandatory reporting rules as a backstop and to limit the duration of the basic part of the program to at most six months.

EPA ignored that advice, and proceeded with an open-ended voluntary program and no development of backstop rules.  Now EPA has issued its first evaluation of the NMSP.  So what did EPA find? Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

Since my first post concerning EPA's Consent Order, I've been reflecting further on the management conditions it imposes - or, more accurately, on what conditions it doesn't impose.  The Order's only such conditions address potential worker exposure.  What about the rest of the nanomaterial's lifecycle? Read more »

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist.

[Part II of this post is available here.] 

Word hit the street today that EPA intends to make public a "sanitized" version of a Consent Order it has negotiated with a producer of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs).  [A link will be provided once available.]  We obtained a copy of the Order, which has redacted all information claimed confidential by the company involved.  What can we learn from this well-scrubbed Order? Read more »

John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., is Chief Health Scientist.

A new paper by Shaw et al., published in May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “suggests a generalizable and scalable method for the systematic characterization and comparison of novel nanomaterials” using high throughput in vitro tests.  Does this mean that the National Academy of Sciences’ vision for toxicity testing in the 21st century – proposed for conventional chemicals – is already here for nanomaterials?  Not quite.  Read more »

John Balbus, M.D., M.P.H., is Chief Health Scientist.

A new study published today in Nature Nanotechnology finds that multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) cause inflammatory changes in mice that closely resemble those caused by asbestos.  This is the second study in a few months to make this finding.  (I posted on the first, Takagi et al., a few weeks ago.)  So is the case closed on multi-walled carbon nanotubes?  Or is too early to draw conclusions? Read more »