EPA, FDA, and Others Collaborate for Chemical Screening
Today (July 19, 2010) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the National Institute of Health Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) welcome the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Tox21 collaboration.
Tox21 will make current chemical testing methods more viable, more comprehensive, and, hopefully, more efficient and effective. Established in 2008, the Tox21 collaboration merges federal agency resources (research, funding and testing tools) to develop ways to more effectively predict how chemicals will affect human health and the environment. FDA's involvement will provide additional expertise and chemical safety information to improve the chemical testing methods presently in use.
“This collaboration is revolutionizing the current approach to chemical risk assessment by sharing expertise, capabilities and chemical information,” said Dr. Paul Anastas, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
“Through the Tox21 collaboration," said Anastas, "2,000 chemicals have already been screened against dozens of biological targets and we are working to increase the number of chemicals to 10,000 by the end of the year.”
There are tens of thousands of chemicals currently in commerce; current chemical testing is expensive and time consuming.
“This partnership builds upon FDA’s commitment to developing new methods to evaluate the toxicity of the substances we regulate,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. FDA says it will collaborate with other Tox21 members to prioritize chemicals that need more extensive toxicological evaluation, and develop models that can better predict human response to chemicals.
"The EPA chemical prioritization research program, called ToxCast, aims to forecast toxicity based on bioactivity profiling," said Chris Watts, Regulatory Expert at Actio Corporation, makers of Chemical Regulation and Compliance software.
"The combination of ToxCast data and the Tox21 expertise and capability is a powerful one-two punch," Watts said. "We should see increased action towards chemical benchmarks, research, testing, and even funding. It's definitely something to keep an eye on, as the chemical classifications and associated regulations are likely to change and proliferate."
We'll keep on top of it. Check back or call for details.
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