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WORKSHOP ON STATUS OF TEST METHODS FOR ASSESSING POTENTIAL OF CHEMICALS TO INDUCE RESPIRATORY ALLERGIC REACTIONS
Citation:
Selgrade, M., C. Zeiss, M. Karol, K. Sarlo, I. Kimber, J. Tepper, AND M. Henry. WORKSHOP ON STATUS OF TEST METHODS FOR ASSESSING POTENTIAL OF CHEMICALS TO INDUCE RESPIRATORY ALLERGIC REACTIONS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-95/108.
Description:
Because of the association between allergy and asthma and the increasing incidence of morbidity and mortality due to asthma, there is growing concern over the potential of industrial chemicals to produce allergic reactions in the respiratory tract. Two classes of chemicals have been well studied in this area: diisocyanates and anhydrides. The Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) encounters such chemicals in their premanufacturing notice (PMN) program. This paper is a summary of a workshop convened OPPT in collaboration with EPA;s Health Effects Research Laboratory to discuss presently available test methods that might be applied to potential chemicals allergens during the PMN process, the types of chemicals that should be considered suspect, and the kinds of research and validation needed to improve our capability to make such predictions. Formal presentations by experts in the fields summarized basic concepts associated with chemicals mediated allergy (hypersensitivity), described several methods available in guinea pigs and mice to test for such activity, and described regulatory problems associated with chemically induced hypersensitivity. Informal discussions followed and included the following: the presence of chemicals specific cytophilic antibody in either guinea pig or mouse or an increase in total IgE in the mouse are useful markers for hazard identification of chemicals that might potentially cause respiratory allergy; and the mouse IgE test provides a useful and economical means for screening chemicals for this effect. However, further validation of this test as well as other tests discussed in this workshop is needed and criteria need to be established for what constitutes a positive IgE test. There was a general consensus that the options currently available for testing chemicals to induce respiratory allergy are far from ideal and that more research and validation are needed.