Rethinking agrochemical safety assessment: A perspective.
Regul Toxicol Pharmacol
; 127: 105068, 2021 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-34678328
ABSTRACT
Agrochemical safety assessment has traditionally relied on the use of animals for toxicity testing, based on scientific understanding and test guidelines developed in the 1980s. However, since then, there have been significant advances in the toxicological sciences that have improved our understanding of mechanisms underpinning adverse human health effects. The time is ripe to 'rethink' approaches used for human safety assessments of agrochemicals to ensure they reflect current scientific understanding and increasingly embrace new opportunities to improve human relevance and predictivity, and to reduce the reliance on animals. Although the ultimate aim is to enable a paradigm shift and an overhaul of global regulatory data requirements, there is much that can be done now to ensure new opportunities and approaches are adopted and implemented within the current regulatory frameworks. This commentary reviews current initiatives and emerging opportunities to embrace new approaches to improve agrochemical safety assessment for humans, and considers various endpoints and initiatives (including acute toxicity, repeat dose toxicity studies, carcinogenicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, exposure-driven approaches, inhalation toxicity, and data modelling). Realistic aspirations to improve safety assessment, incorporate new technologies and reduce reliance on animal testing without compromising protection goals are discussed.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Agrochemicals
/
Animal Testing Alternatives
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Guideline
/
Prognostic_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Language:
En
Journal:
Regul Toxicol Pharmacol
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article