EPA's neurotoxicity risk assessment guidelines.

The proposed Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment Guidelines (U.S. EPA, 1995c Fed. Reg. 60(192), 52032-52056) of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were the subject of a workshop at the 1997 Meeting of the Society of Toxicology. The workshop considered the role of guidelines in the risk assessment process, the primary features, scientific basis, and implications of the guidelines for EPA program offices, as well as for industrial neurotoxicologists from the perspectives of both pesticides and toxic substances regulation. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS, 1983, Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process) established a framework for distinguishing risk management from risk assessment, the latter being the result of integrating hazard identification, hazard characterization, and exposure assessment data. The guidelines are intended to establish operating principles that will be used when examining data in a risk assessment context. The proposed neurotoxicity risk assessment guidelines provide a conceptual framework for deciding whether or not a chemically induced effect can be considered to be evidence of neurotoxicity. Topics in the proposed guidelines include structural and functional effects, dose-response and -duration considerations, and relationships between effects. Among the issues that must be considered are the multiplicity of chemical effects, the levels of biological organization in the nervous system, and the tests, measurements, and protocols used. Judgment of the adversity of an effect depends heavily on the amount and types of data available. The attribution of a chemically induced effect to an action on the nervous system depends on several factors such as the quality of the study, the nature of the outcome, dose-response and time-response relationships, and the possible involvement of nonneural factors. The guidelines will also serve as a reference for those conducting neurotoxicity testing, as well as establish a consistent approach to neurotoxicity risk assessment by regulators. Extending this approach through international harmonization would be advantageous to the development of products for a worldwide market. Thus, both risk assessors and regulated industries have a large stake in the guidelines to provide a framework that will lead to accurate risk assessment decisions.