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INTERPRETING BIOMARKER DATA FOR ASSESSING CUMULATIVE RISKS FROM EXPOSURES TO ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTANTS.
Impact/Purpose:
Identify and evaluate assessment and analytical tools for using biomarkers of exposure to understand and address cumulative risks.
Description:
Increasingly, EPA's decisions are being challenged on the basis that the Agency has not adequately addressed aggregate exposure and cumulative risk arising from exposures to complex mixtures of chemicals. In addition to Congress and the public, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and other expert panels have urged EPA to address aggregate exposures and cumulative risk. According to EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) report Safeguarding the Future:Credible Science, Credible Decisions (EPA/600/9-91/050), EPA historically has focused on chemical-specific impacts, while methods to assess or control the effects of chemical mixtures and general stressors remain undeveloped.
EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) current work on aggregate-cumulative risk is largely driven by the requirements of the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 and, consequently, a narrow interpretation of the scientific concept is used (current aggregate and cumulative risk research focuses specifically on pesticides). In an effort to expand ORD's aggregate and cumulative risk research program, a research initiative has been funded to focus on enhancing ORD's core research activities to meet some of the most critical research needs arising from a broader definition of cumulative risk - which has been encouraged by the EPA's SAB, Science Policy Council (SPC), other review panels, Regions, and Program Offices. The National Academy of Sciences report on strengthening science at EPA referred to such core research as the indispensable wellspring that prepares and enables ORD to provide better problem-specific research and technical assistance to the Agency and the Nation.
The Aggregate-Cumulative Risk approach turns many traditional risk assessment approaches on their head focusing on the person who is exposed, rather than on the chemical potentially causing risk. Regularly, EPA Regions and Program Offices have to deal with questions of "what does it mean to me?" from a public that is assaulted, not by one chemical at a time, but by a myriad of pollutants and stressors. ORD's aggregate-cumulative exposure and risk research is aimed at providing the tools needed to address these questions. To date ORD's National Exposure Laboratory (NERL) human exposure research has been focused on aggregate (i.e., from all pathways) exposures to environmental pollutants. The work planned here will build on the work being done to improve assessment of aggregate exposures to environmental pollutants by focusing on exposure research required to improve assessment of cumulative (i.e., from exposure to multiple chemicals) risks. As part of this initiative, this task will focus on research needed to use biomarkers of exposure to assess cumulative risk.