Applying Clinical Literature to Microbial Risk Assessment. J. M. Balbus, R. T. Parkin, and D. F. Goldsmith, The George Washington University
Outcomes of microbial exposures are often clinically observable and attributable to exposure to a single agent, although the vast majority of infections and illnesses do not come to the attention of health care providers. In contrast, outcomes modeled in risk assessments for chemical exposures are often difficult to observe clinically (e.g., neurotoxicity or early fetal demise) or impossible to attribute to a single agent (e.g. most cancers). Because of this difference in the nature of the outcomes, sources of data that address the results of actual human exposures to microbial agents are available, and include clinical case series, clinical trials, and outbreak investigations. This information is highly applicable to microbial risk assessment, but is designed for clinical practitioners rather than risk assessors. Physicians’ and other clinicians’ training emphasizes the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, not the prediction or prevention of infectious diseases. Clinical literature reflects this, but it may still be useful for particular issues. This presentation reviews the strengths and limitations of the variety of clinical literature available for microbial risk assessment, and discusses how non-traditional literature sources may be applied to microbial risk assessment.
Supported by Cooperative Agreement CX 826396-01-0 with the EPA Office of Water, Health and Ecological Criteria Division.
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