Reflections on chemical risk assessment or how (not) to serve society with science

• Published in: The Science of the total environment Vol. 792; p. 148511
• Main Authors: Hanekamp, Jaap C., Calabrese, Edward J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 20-10-2021
• Subjects: Hazard; Organohalogens; Risk; Risk assessment; Safety standards; Toxicological models; Risk; Organohalogens; Safety standards; Toxicological models; Risk assessment; Hazard
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148511
• EISSN: 1879-1026
• ISSN: 0048-9697

In this paper, we want to shed light on the demand for chemical and toxicological data growing ever more faster than science can supply and other aspects of assessing chemical risks, including the demand for ‘ever greater safety’. The treatise that follows is on the one hand rooted in well-established toxicological theory and on the other hand utilises emerging toxicological insights. Both theoretical conceptions and empirical substantiations are discussed to build up a perspective that produces an outlook on innovation and proliferates insights into our inexorable and invaluable exposure to ‘the chemical’. We propose that in toxicology, with the implicit mandatory linear routine of dose-response, there is no tangible scientific drive to understand and unearth the actual empirical dose-response curve for chemicals under scrutiny. This can and should be improved upon as to advance the science of toxicology and to optimise current and future regulatory efforts.
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•The demand for toxicological risk assessments is ever-increasing.•The chemical risk assessment paradigm needs to overcome the natural-synthetic divide.•Hazard analyses of carcinogens needs to be replaced by full-on risk assessments.•The available toxicological models are too simplistic in their linearity.