Making the most of expert judgment in hazard and risk assessment of chemicals

Evaluation of the reliability and relevance of toxicity and ecotoxicity studies is an integral step in the assessment of the hazards and risks of chemicals. This evaluation is inherently reliant on expert judgment, which often leads to differences between experts' conclusions regarding how individual studies can contribute to the body of evidence. The conclusions of regulatory assessment, such as establishing safe exposure levels for humans and the environment and calculations of margins of exposure, may have large consequences for which chemicals are permitted on the market and their allowed uses. It is therefore important that such assessments are based on all reliable and relevant scientific data, and that assessment principles and assumptions, such as expert judgment, are transparently applied. It is not possible nor desirable to completely eliminate expert judgment from the evaluation of (eco)toxicity studies. However, it is desirable to introduce measures that increase structure and transparency in the evaluation process so as to provide scientifically robust risk assessments that can be used for regulatory decision making. In this article we present results from workshop exercises with Nordic experts to illustrate how experts' evaluations regarding the reliability and relevance of (eco)toxicity studies for risk assessment may vary and discuss methods intended to promote structure and transparency in the evaluation process.

How we can make ecotoxicology more valuable to environmental protection

There is increasing awareness that the value of peer-reviewed scientific literature is not consistent, resulting in a growing desire to improve the practice and reporting of studies. This is especially important in the field of ecotoxicology, where regulatory decisions can be partly based on data from the peer-reviewed literature, with wide-reaching implications for environmental protection. Our objective is to improve the reporting of ecotoxicology studies so that they can be appropriately utilized in a fair and transparent fashion, based on their reliability and relevance. We propose a series of nine reporting requirements, followed by a set of recommendations for adoption by the ecotoxicology community. These reporting requirements will provide clarity on the the test chemical, experimental design and conditions, chemical identification, test organisms, exposure confirmation, measurable endpoints, how data are presented, data availability and statistical analysis. Providing these specific details will allow for a fuller assessment of the reliability and relevance of the studies, including limitations. Recommendations for the implementation of these reporting requirements are provided herein for practitioners, journals, reviewers, regulators, stakeholders, funders, and professional societies. If applied, our recommendations will improve the quality of ecotoxicology studies and their value to environmental protection.

Reporting and evaluation criteria as means towards a transparent use of ecotoxicity data for environmental risk assessment of pharmaceuticals

Ecotoxicity data with high reliability and relevance are needed to guarantee the scientific quality of environmental risk assessments of pharmaceuticals. The main advantages of a more structured approach to data evaluation include increased transparency and predictability of the risk assessment process, and the possibility to use non-standard data. In this collaboration, between the research project MistraPharma and the German Federal Environment Agency, a new set of reporting and evaluation criteria is presented and discussed. The new criteria are based on the approaches in the literature and the OECD reporting requirements, and have been further developed to include both reliability and relevance of test data. Intended users are risk assessors and researchers performing ecotoxicological experiments, but the criteria can also be used for education purposes and in the peer-review process for scientific papers. This approach intends to bridge the gap between the regulator and the scientist's needs and way of work.