IRIS Toxicological Review and Summary Documents for Boron and Compounds (Third External Review Draft 2002)

The U. S. EPA has conducted a peer review of the scientific basis supporting the health hazard and dose response assessment for Boron that will appear on the Agency's online data base, the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). Peer Review is meant to ensure that science is used credibly and appropriately in derivation of these dose-response assessments. The primary function of the peer reviewer should be to judge whether the choice, use and interpretation of the data employed in the derivation of the assessment is appropriate and scientifically sound.

The IRIS Toxicological Review for Boron and IRIS Summary Sheets have previously gone through an internal and external review. However certain sections of the Toxicological Review have been revised since these peer reviews took place. Revisions to the last external review draft were made based on some external reviewer comments and comments from the public when the external review was posed on the NCEA web. The previous method for using data to derive an uncertainty factor has been revised with this new draft. This method has been through the agency's internal review process and has been submitted for one more formal external peer review. Due to the amount of review that this document has already received we are requesting review comments only on the revised method of using toxicokinetic data to replace uncertainty factors. This review would include an analysis of Section 5.1.3. of the Toxicological Review and the Section 1.A.3. of the RfD Summary Sheet. This review is needed before the Toxicological Review and IRIS Summary sheets for Boron are forwarded to the EPA's Consensus Review Process for final approval and adoption by the EPA. These hazard and dose-response assessments will then appear on IRIS and become available as agency consensus health effect information.