Completed task forces

Recently Completed Task Forces

11.06.2014

Activity-Based Relationships for Aquatic Ecotoxicology Data: Use of the Activity Approach to Strengthen MoA Predictions

Environmental Sciences Manager: Malyka Galay Burgos Administrative Assistant Sonia Pulinckx Background Two ECETOC Task Forces on the risk assessment of PBTs have produced recommendations to enable t...
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26.05.2015

Adapting Simple Treat for simulating behaviour of chemical substances

Background In the EU the fate of chemicals in wastewater treatment is currently simulated with SimpleTreat 3.1. RIVM is currently revising SimpleTreat 3.1 for simulating municipal wastewater treatmen...
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26.05.2015

Adverse Outcome Pathways (AOPs) focusing on endocrine active chemicals

Background There are currently many intense global activities on adverse outcome pathways (AOP). Much of this activity is focused on endocrine disruption (ED). There is a risk that AOPs will be used t...
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28.10.2015

Approaches for read-across in chemical risk assessment

Outcome Technical Report no.109: High information content technologies in support of read-across in chemical risk assessment (Published Decempber 2010). Read-across exploits information on structura...
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28.10.2015

Aquatic toxicity and bioaccumulation of sparingly soluble manufactured particulate substances

Background In 1996 ECETOC published Monograph No. 26 which reviewed the difficulties of sparingly soluble substances in aquatic toxicity assays. This work helped establish the current paradigm in aqu...
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12.06.2014

Assessment and evaluation of risks resulting from dermal exposure to chemicals

Completed task force: The task force published its findings in March 2013 as Technical Report no.119: Evaluation of systemic health effects following dermal exposure to chemicals Health Sciences Manag...
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12.06.2014

Category approaches, read-across, (Q)SAR

Health Sciences Manager Christa Hennes Administrative Assistant Christine Yannakas The task force completed its work in 2012; the Technical Report No. 116 can be downloaded here. Categorisation, rea...
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11.06.2014

Chemical risk assessment – ecosystem services

Background Assessing the risks of chemicals to man and the environment is based on the concept of comparing exposure to chemicals with their respective hazardous properties. However, there are differ...
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12.06.2014

Development of interim guidance for the inclusion of non-extractable residues (NER) in the risk assessment of chemicals

Completed task force: The task force published its findings in June 2013 as Technical Report no.118; Development of interim guidance for the inclusion of non-extractable residues (NER) in the risk a...
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02.08.2018

DNEL Derivation Guidance

The ECETOC DNEL Derivation Guidance (2010) – which provides the technical underpinnings by which many/most of industry DNELs (derived no-effect levels) were developed in 2010 and post-2010 – are u...
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11.04.2017

Endocrine Disruption

In December 2016, in response to the ‘Outline of draft Guidance Document for the implementation of the hazard-based criteria to identify endocrine disruptors’, published by ECHA and EFSA in Decemb...
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28.10.2015

Environmental Exposure Assessment of Ionisable Organic Compounds

Technical Report no.123: Environmental Exposure Assessment of Ionisable Organic Compounds (Published December 2013) Summary This report seeks to improve the capability to estimate the bioavailability...
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26.05.2015

Exploring community-based environmental hazard assessments of mixtures based on MOA-based approaches

Background There is an increasing awareness of the need to complement single substance assessments with the assessment of mixtures. Mode of action considerations have been proposed to derive environme...
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11.06.2014

Exploring novel ways of using SSD to establish PNECs for industrial chemicals

Environmental Sciences Manager Malyka Galay Burgos Background An ECETOC workshop on "Probabilistic Approaches for Marine Hazard Assessment" was held in Oslo, June 2008. The main outcomes are documen...
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07.03.2019

Exposure-based adaptations Task Force

Background Within the REACH legal text there are 2 ways to adapt the standard testing requirements; column 2 of annexes VII to X, and Annex XI. Annex XI contains 3 potential options – testing not p...
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28.10.2015

Freshwater Ecotoxicity as an environmental impact category to guide the selection of chemical-based products

November 2016 Publication of Task Force findings as Technical Report no.127: Freshwater ecotoxicity as an impact category in life cycle assessment In a Nutshell: Freshwater is a vital component in...
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02.06.2017

Geospatial approaches to increasing the ecological relevance of chemical risk assessments

Aim The overall aim of this task force is to review and inform on the use of geo-referenced data to increase the environmental relevance of chemical risk assessment. The task force aims are complem...
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11.06.2014

Grouping of nanomaterials

Background and Outcome Nanomaterials and nanotechnology-enabled products have to be safe. It is imperative that they do not harm humans or the environment. As more and more nanotechnology-enabled...
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02.05.2016

Guidance Document for the Extended One-Generation Reproduction Toxicity Study (OECD Test Guideline 443) (EOGRT)

Terms of Reference Review the available literature on the sensitivity and specificity of including a second generation in reproductive toxicity testing. Define, if possible, the triggers to inclu...
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28.10.2015

Guidance for assessing the impact of mixtures of chemicals in the aquatic environment

Outcome The potential risk from combinations of chemicals in the environment has recently moved up the scientific, regulatory and political agenda as a result of the increasing concern about the pote...
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11.06.2014

Guidance for classification of reproductive toxicants under GHS

Health Sciences Manager Christa Hennes Administrative Assistant Christine Yannakas Background The Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) has been introduced in...
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11.06.2014

Guidance for Effective Use of Human Exposure Data in Risk Assessment of Chemicals

Background The structures and processes by which risks are assessed and managed should themselves be risk-informed. This requires that full and proper account needs to be taken of the human exposure...
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28.10.2015

Guidance on assessment factors to derive a DNEL

Outcome In the REACH Technical Guidance Document, chapter R.8 ‘Characterisation of dose -response for human health’ proposes a tiered and systematic approach for the delineation of DNEL (and DMEL)...
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12.06.2014

Guidance on interpreting endocrine disrupting effects within the constraints of REACH and the revised 91/414 directive

The finding of this Task force were published as Technical Report No. 106 (published June 2009). Background REACH has indicated that substances (e.g. intermediates, raw materials and formulation inert...
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11.06.2014

Low-dose interactions

Health Sciences Manager Christa Hennes Administrative Assistant Christine Yannakas The task force published its findings in July 2012 as Technical Report No. 115; "Effects of Chemical Co-exposures a...
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11.06.2014

Mode of Action and Identification of Adverse vs. Non-adverse Effects

Task Force Manager Alan Poole Administrative Assistant Christine Yannakas Background The scientifically sound discrimination between adverse and non-adverse effects has always been a key element in...
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11.06.2014

PBT criteria (Annex XIII of REACH)

Outcome: August 2014 The task force has published its findings as ECETOC Special Report 18: Information to be considered in a weight-of-evidence-based PBT/vPvB assessment of chemicals (Annex XIII of R...
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18.12.2018

Persistent chemicals and water resources protection

Background Several initiatives end-2017 and 2018 on identification of substances of concern to drinking water resources. ECETOC role in supporting the development of a science-based framework to a...
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12.06.2014

Poorly Soluble Particles / Lung Overload

Chemicals Programme Manager Henk Vrijhof Administrative Assistant Sonia Pulinckx Background The majority of data on respiratory effects of inhaled poorly soluble particles (PSP) stems from rat inhal...
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11.06.2014

Potency in carcinogenicity and reproductive toxicity classification

Potency in carcinogenicity and reproductive toxicity classification Classification should give guidance on the potential hazards of chemicals. Once the nature of the hazard is known, potency is the m...
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12.06.2014

Refined Approaches for Risk Assessment of PBT/vPvB Chemicals

Environmental Sciences Manager Malyka Galay Burgos Administrative Assistant Sonia Pulinckx The findings of the task force were published in October 2011 as ECETOC Technical Report No.112; "Refined A...
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28.10.2015

Risk assessment approaches for PBT/vPvB or POPs

Outcome The Task Force resulted in the Technical Report no.112: Refined Approaches for Risk Assessment of PBT/vPvB Chemicals (Published October 2011) Many national, or regional, regulations and regio...
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11.06.2014

Sufficiency of aquatic hazard information for environmental risk assessment

Background Currently, there is no clear consensus concerning whether available information on the aquatic hazard of substances is sufficient for determining whether or not an environmental risk asses...
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11.06.2014

Thresholds in respiratory sensitisation

Task Force Manager Alan Poole Administrative Assistant Christine Yannakas Background Respiratory sensitisation gains increasing importance in EU regulations as an endpoint driving restrictive measur...
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12.06.2014

Understanding the relationship between extraction technique and bioavailability

Completed task force: The task force published its findings in June 2013 as Technical Report no.117: Understanding the relationship between extraction technique and bioavailability Environmental S...
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