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Fish Alternatives in Environmental Risk Assessment: Overview of the Current Landscape
Citation:
EMBRY, M., S. E. BELANGER, T. BRAUNBECK, M. GALAY-BURGOS, M. HALDER, D. HINTON, M. LEONARD, A. LILLICRAP, T. J. NORBERG-KING, AND G. WHALE. Fish Alternatives in Environmental Risk Assessment: Overview of the Current Landscape . Presented at SETAC Annual Meeting, Tampa, FL, November 16 - 20, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
This presentation provides an overview of the landscape of interactions ongoing in fish alternatives, with the goal of highlighting areas for future globally coordinated scientific efforts.
Description:
The need for alternative testing strategies has recently expanded into the realm of environmental risk assessment leading to the development of new alternatives to standard aquatic vertebrate testing such as the OECD 203 acute fish toxicity test. The fish embryo test (FET) is one such alternative. The FET examines four lethality endpoints during exposure from fertilization through the eleutheroembryo stage. HESI and ECETOC held an international workshop in March, 2008 concerning the FET as an animal alternative method in hazard and risk assessment and scientific research with the goal of reviewing the state of the science regarding the investigation of fish embryonic tests, pain and distress in fish, emerging approaches utilizing fish embryos, and the use of fish embryo test data in hazard and risk assessment, effluent assessment, and international classification and labeling of chemicals. Several themes emerged as a result of the workshop including expansion of the current FET to include additional species, broading the current applicability of the FET by adding additional endpoints and extending exposure, investigating the utility of this assay for chronic testing, and exploring the possibilty of integrating the FET into an intelligent, tiered testing strategy or weight of evidence approach. Although the workshop focused on the FET specifically, future activities of this group include collaborating with ongoing efforts and groups in the broader arena of fish alternatives in environmental risk assessment, such as CEFIC-LRI, support of OECD’s work on the draft FET Technical Guideline, a newly formed SETAC Global Advisory Group on Animal Alternatives in Environmental Science, and ECVAM. This presentation will provide an overview of the landscape of interactions ongoing in fish alternatives, with the goal of highlighting areas for future globally coordinated scientific efforts.