The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued a notice addressing its amendment to “the calculation used to convert estimates of animal cancer potencyto estimates of human cancer potency, which is used to calculate no significant risk levels for carcinogens listed under Proposition 65.” According to the notice, the amendment took effect November 11, 2011, and will change “the existing regulatory provision to a ratio of human to animal bodyweight to the one-fourth power for interspecies conversion and delete[] the provision giving specific scaling factors for mice and rat data.” OEHHA has also announced that its Carcinogen Identification Committee has been asked to consider whether Dibenzanthracenes should be added to the Proposition 65 list. These substances are ubiquitous polyaromatic hydrocarbons that are the product of incomplete combustion, and human exposure may occur from contaminated food or water. Public comments are requested by January 10, 2012.…
Category Archives Issue 417
After a coalition of advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seeking an order compelling the agency to rule on 1999 and 2005 petitions that asked the agency to withdraw approval of certain antimicrobial drugs in food animal production, the agency finally acted. Information about the lawsuit appears in Issue 396 of this Update. According to November 7, 2011, letters addressed to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) and Environmental Defense, “the Agency has decided not to institute formal withdrawal proceedings at this time and instead is currently pursuing other alternatives to address the issue of antimicrobial resistance related to the production use of antimicrobials in animal agriculture.” FDA contends that withdrawal proceedings can be protracted and consume significant agency resources. While the agency notes that it shares the petitioners’ “concern about the use of medically important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals for…
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