PNNL

Abstract

INTRODUCTION The ILSI Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) formed the Agricultural Chemical Safety Assessment (ACSA) Technical Committee in the year 2000 to design a toxicity testing scheme thatwould incorporate current understanding of pesticide toxicology and exposure and recognize the specificity of agricultural products. The purpose of and background for the ACSA project are described in detail in the companion paper by Carmichael et al. (2006). As the proposed tiered testing approach for agricultural chemical safety assessment evolved, the ACSA Technical Committee and its task forces (Carmichael et al., 2006; Cooper et al., 2006; Doe et al., 2006) worked toward the following objectives: • Provide information that can be applied to a range of relevant human exposure situations. • Characterize effects that have the potential to damage human health at exposure levels approximating those that might be encountered in the use of these compounds. • Avoid high doses that cause unnecessary public concern (e.g., safety assessments should focus on doses that are relevant to realistic human exposures while maintaining adequate power for the experimental studies to detect toxicity). • Use the minimum number of animals necessary to produce a thorough safety assessment of the chemicals of interest. • Inflict the minimum amount of distress on animals. • Minimize excessive and unnecessary use of resources by regulatory authorities and industry, which could be used to address other issues of concern. • Increase both the efficiency and relevance of the current safety assessment process.