Using publicly available information to create exposure and risk-based ranking of chemicals used in the workplace and consumer products.

Mandates that require the estimation of exposure and human health risk posed by large numbers of chemicals present regulatory managers with a significant challenge. Although these issues have been around for some time, the estimation of human exposure to chemicals from use of products in the workplace and by the consumer has been generally hindered by the lack of good tools. Logically and in the interest of cost-effective resource allocation and regulation one would typically and naturally first attempt to rank-order or prioritize the chemicals according to the human exposure potential that each might pose.

Available data on naphthalene exposures: strengths and limitations.

Exposures to naphthalene occur from a number of sources. Data on these exposures have been reported by a number of researchers; however, these data have not been organized into a consistent framework. In addition, while naphthalene has been identified as an animal inhalation carcinogen there has been no attempt to define the ranges of long-term average inhalation exposures for the general population or sub populations that are relevant to the assessment of the risk of the occurrence of chronic effects.

Modeling framework for human exposure assessment.

We are at the dawn of a new era of quantitative consumer exposure and risk assessment of chemicals driven by regulatory mandates. This remarkable development also signals the beginning of a dramatic resurgence in the need for and development of human exposure models. This paper presents some of the philosophical background underlying exposure modeling in the context of human health risk assessment.

How much is enough to accept hormesis as the default? or 'At what point, if ever, could/should hormesis be employed as the principal dose-response default assumption in risk assessment?'.

Hormesis as the principal human dose-response default assumption must reasonably await the development of the science of toxicology and molecular biology before this dramatic change can occur. The inherent quality of typical toxicological data is simply too limited to allow for an understanding of what really occurs in human tissues at the relatively low doses generally extant in the environment. Thus, forwarding or asserting the quantitative use of hormesis (or any model of low dose-response) without this reasonable knowledge is simply an argument without data.