Thomas Backhaus of the University of Gothenburg on the recent ECETOC combined exposure workshop

Homepage: http://www.thomasbackhaus.eu/

Article address: http://www.thomasbackhaus.eu/2011/07/last-weeks-ecetoc-workshop-on-mixture-toxicity/

Posted by Thomas on July 16, 2011

ECETOC, the European Centre for Ecotoxicology and Toxicology of Chemicals, conducted a 2-day workshop on mixture toxicity and risk assessment last week in Berlin. Around 80 (my estimate) toxicologists and ecotoxicologists, coming from industry (obviously the majority), academia and regulation. The first day was occupied with a collection of presentations on various topics, covering (amongst others) the recently published WHO/ICPS workshop report, the MCR (maximum cumulative ratio) concept, the draft opinion of the EU Scientific Committees on mixture toxicity assessment, and several case studies.

I had the honor of chairing one of the breakout groups on the second day (on mixture toxicity assessment), together with Prof. Alan Boobis from the Imperial College in London. The group was actually a bit big for being really productive and additionally, the participants certainly had different backgrounds and interests. So, we didn‘t invent the wheel during those 3 hours, but it was certainly a highly interesting exchange of thoughts and perspectives. The workshop organizers are currently preparing a report on those two days, I‘ll provide more details and perhaps some comments as soon as that text is publically available.

I came across a couple of concepts during the workshop that I really need to wrap my brain around. Food for thought although this beautiful summer weather certainly doesn‘t help focussing Description: Where‘s my camera?

Thomas