EPA to Use New Methods for Certain Chemical Reviews

EPA will use two new methods to assess inhalation risks of surfactants and oral risks of some pesticides, the agency announced on Aug. 27. These methods are intended to help EPA modernize toxicity reviews and advance its goal of eliminating animal testing, according to an agency news release.

Changes to EPA’s inhalation risk assessment approach for surfactants (PDF), which include chemicals used in soaps, detergents, and cleaning products, include a new approach methodology, or NAM. NAMs are intended to reduce or replace animal testing for the purpose of gathering hazard and risk assessment information. The NAM for human health risk assessment for surfactants uses a three-dimensional human airway epithelial model and is intended to “better predict how these specific formulas may irritate the lungs” and allow “reviewers to safely estimate risks using existing digital models,” EPA’s news release explains.

The agency has also decided to use the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) mixtures equation to predict oral toxicity for some pesticides. An analysis of the performance of the GHS equation explains that the mixtures equation “estimates the acute toxicity of mixtures using the toxicities of mixture components.” The results of the analysis, published in 2021 in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, suggest that “the mixtures equation can reliably identify products that are minimally toxic by the oral route,” EPA says.

“NAMs allow EPA to look directly at chemical impacts on human cells and biological pathways, leading to more accurate predictions of potential health risks in significantly less time than it takes to complete a single animal study,” the agency states.

For further details, see EPA’s news release.