Workshop Report no.37 – Online workshop on the scientific feasibility of exposure-based adaptations in the regulatory setting

A workshop organised by the Centre for chemical safety assessment (ECETOC) has recommended improving the EU’s REACH legislation legal text to enable more chemicals to be assessed via exposure-based adaptations (EBA). In situations where there is no human or environmental exposure to a chemical, or it is so low that additional data will not lead to improvement of risk management, it is possible to waive some information requirements for registering the substance, so avoiding unnecessary animal testing.

The workshop participants compared their experiences of EBA and how its use was often prevented by ambiguous legal text and vague terminology. They then explored how to improve exposure information, as well as more rigorous ways of expressing it (e.g. exposure categories) in order to address fears about EBA’s robustness.