Official enthusiasm for the Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) is maintained. That is the tenor of the latest EFSA draft guidance document on this important topic (http://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/consultation/consultation/181112-d.pdf). If you have any comments to make you have until 8th January 2019 as that is when public…
Oxford Dictionary has brought joy to the hearts of toxicologists around the world – by announcing that their Word of the Year 2018, is “toxic”! We know what it means, we can spell it, and we write it a lot…but why this sudden surge in…
With hundreds of medical device companies continuously producing new, innovative technologies to improve and expand on their product ranges as well as an ever-increasing demand for these important devices, the global medical device market value is predicted to rise to $483.8 billion by 2022. But…
It has been a while, but if you recall in the previous (and first) blog in this series, we gave the potted history of the main TTC benchmarks that can used to assess an untested chemical. For any exuding a structural suspicion of genotoxicity, the…
You cannot turn the page of a newspaper these days without catching the latest worrying headline regarding the next thing that’s bad for you (which often conflicts with the previous day’s dire warnings!) – drink coffee / don’t touch caffeine, enjoy a glass of wine…
Neurodevelopmental disorders in children have increased significantly in recent years (according to the European Joint Research Centre), which adds urgency to the need to evaluate new and existing chemicals for their potential activity in this area. This is difficult when the existing OECD DNT study,…
A wide spectrum of risk assessors are enamoured of the TTC, which essentially uses a knowledge of the toxicological properties of the universe of tested chemicals to make conservative predictions of the likely toxicity of untested materials. It gives them pragmatic respite from the onward…
The effects of vaping on public health remains a newsworthy and interesting topic of discussion, with a range of views and opinions. Public Health England (PHE) is committed to reviewing the evidence regarding e-cigarette use and the effects of vaping on consumer health. PHE has…
Hormonal disruption is a hot topic these days. Following 2016 draft EU legislation setting scientific criteria for identifying EDs (under plant protection and biocidal products Regulations), EFSA and ECHA have issued a draft guidance document on this subject. It includes advice on how to gather,…
Establishing whether or not a substance is genotoxic is critical in risk assessment, as it determines whether the substance can be assessed as a threshold or non-threshold toxin. The OECD Test Guidelines (TGs) on genetic toxicology are considered the “gold standard” on how the favoured…