Children’s Exposure To Pet Products: How Do We Regulate? S. H. Youngren and B. M. Polakoff, Novigen Sciences, Inc., Washington, DC
The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 included a requirement to assess the risk from all potential residential exposures to pesticides. The EPA has translated this requirement into additional emphasis on assessment of non-dietary, residential exposures, particularly for children, for uses such as pet products. The Agency developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) designed "to provide standard default methods for developing residential exposure assessments for both handler and post-application exposures…[for use] in the absence of, or as a supplement to, chemical- and/or site-specific data" (US EPA 1997). The SOPs include equations resulting in deterministic estimates of exposure (i.e., point estimates). Distributional analysis methods, such as Monte Carlo, have been proposed as alternative methods of assessment so as to address the variability and uncertainty in the data. Newly developed data and use of Monte Carlo analyses have permitted the analysis of more realistic case conditions. However, this has raised questions regarding regulatory decision-making. Given a distribution of non-dietary risk, at what level (percentile) should regulations be set? The following case study demonstrates the impact of different levels of analysis refinements and data practices on the risk estimate, and compares the results used in the test analyses to current EPA policies.
Go to . . .
1999 SRA Table of Contents
1999 SRA Author Index
Main Abstracts Menu Page
RiskWorld Home Page