Abstract |
BASF Corporation (formerly BASF Wyandotte Corporation) holds FIFRA Registration 7969-33, Luprosil, a preservative for field-shelled corn, the active ingredient of which is propionic acid. In addition, BASF Corporation is also a processor of propionic acid which is being purchased in the U.S. for chemical use in plastics production. This submission is to inform EPA of new preliminary results from toxicological investigations on propionic acid. This information and the enclosure have been supplied to us by our ultimate parent corporation, BASF Aktiengesellschaft. The German Federal Health Office (Bundesgesundheitsamt) has recently undertaken to evaluate propionic acid. In a meeting on May 13, 1987, in which numerous toxicologists and pathologists participated, the results of the following investigations with propionic acid were discussed. (1) Histopathological evaluation of a long-term feeding experiment carried out by GRIEM of the Bundesgesundheitsamt, the first results of which had been published in 1985; (2) A 90-day feeding study in rats with two recovery periods of 90 and 180 days carried out by ALTMANN et al., also of the Bundesgesundheitsamt; (3) A 3-month feeding study in dogs with a 6-week recovery period (0.3, 1, and 3% propionic acid in the feed) carried out by HELLWIG et al., at BASF's toxicology laboratory and jointly sponsored by BASF Aktiengesellschaft and BF Chemicals International. |