WHO Risk Assessment Toolkit Ad-
dresses Chemical Hazards
A new publication from the World
Health Organization provides guidance
on identifying, acquiring and using the
information needed to assess chemical
hazards, exposures and the correspon-
ding health risks in their given health
risk assessment contexts at local and
national levels. “Human Health Risk
Assessment Toolkit: Chemical Hazards”
addresses how to conduct a human
health risk assessment, identifies infor-
mation that must be gathered to com-
plete an assessment and lists electronic
links to international resources from
which users can obtain additional infor-
mation and methods.
The Toolkit is intended for public
health and environmental professionals,
regulators, industrial managers and other
decision makers with at least some training in the principles of risk assessment
and who have a role in assessing and
managing human health risks of chemicals. To download the Toolkit, visit
www.who.int/ipcs/publications/methods/
harmonization/toolkit.pdf.
New Robot System to Test 10,000
Chemicals for Toxicity
As part of an ongoing collaboration referred to as Tox21, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal
agencies announced a new high-speed
robot screening system in March that
will test 10,000 chemicals for potential
toxicity.
The robot system is located at the NIH
Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) in
Rockville, Md. Tox21 was established in
2008 between the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences National
Toxicology Program, the National
Human Genome Research Institute
(NHGRI), and EPA, with the addition of
the Food and Drug Administration in
2010. Tox21 seeks to develop ways to
more effectively predict how chemicals
will affect human health and the environment.
The 10,000 chemicals were selected
from more than 200 public databases of
chemicals and drugs used in the U.S. and
abroad. Testing results are expected to
help determine whether these chemicals
have the potential to disrupt human
body processes enough to lead to adverse health effects.
Christopher Austin, M.D., the director
of the NCGC at NHGRI, said, “The Tox21
collaboration will transform our under-
standing of toxicology with the ability to
test in a day what would take one year
for a person to do by hand.” NHGRI
Director Eric Green, MD, PhD, added,
"Tox21 has used robots to screen chemi-
cals since 2008, but this new robotic
system is dedicated to screening a much
larger compound library.”
Tox21 has screened more than 2,500
chemicals for potential toxicity. For
more information, visit http://ntp.niehs.
nih.gov.
