| Winter
2004• Volume XIII, Number 1
Arm Wrestling the EPA
By Kristie Stoick, M.P.H.
As part of an ongoing effort to monitor the EPA’s High-Production
Volume Challenge (HPV), PCRM researchers have uncovered industry
plans to perform duplicative animal tests.
Arch Chemicals, Inc., worldwide manufacturer of sealants, adhesives,
coatings, and other chemicals, was preparing to perform toxicity
tests on the industrial chemical 2-chloropyridine, an ingredient
used in pharmaceutical and agricultural products, even though the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences was already
testing the chemical. PCRM notified EPA officials, who intervened
and are working to have the experiments called off. Fifty rats are
scheduled to undergo painful forced ingestion of chemical agents
in this particular test. But this is just one example among many.
| When chemical manufacturers blunder
ahead with new animal tests, without examining existing data,
the EPA has often been slow to step in. |
By focusing exclusively on non-human data, the HPV program ignores
a wealth of information from human toxicity, exposure, and epidemiological
studies already performed for many of the listed chemicals. Available
in-vitro tests are all but neglected. And when chemical
manufacturers blunder ahead with new animal tests without investigating
existing data, the EPA has often been slow to step in. As for protecting
human health, results from tests performed on animals present many
problems. They must be extrapolated from high to low doses, and
then from rats and mice to humans, greatly reducing the validity
and accuracy of risk assessments. They are not intended to reduce
any toxic exposures. Moreover, mandatory animal testing continues
to impede progress for nonanimal methods.
At the 12th Meeting of the OECD Task Force on Existing Chemicals,
PCRM’s research and toxicology director Chad Sandusky, Ph.D.,
challenged HPV’s reliance on hazard data alone. In reality,
the degree of exposure is a more important factor in determining
effects of a substance than the hazardous nature of that substance.
In other words, even a highly toxic substance that is unlikely to
reach many humans may present negligible risk. Conversely, a low-risk
chemical that saturates an environment may cause serious harm over
time. Dr. Sandusky pointed out to task force members that the continual
generation of toxicity data from animal tests—without some
measure of probable exposure—is not only a needless infliction
of pain on animals and waste of financial recourses, but it ultimately
fails to protect people or the environment.
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