By Amy Charlene
Reed, RiskWorld staff
E-mail to: reed@tec-com.com.
The following is a RiskWorld interview with toxicologist Michael L. Dourson (e-mail mdourson@aol.com), who founded the non-profit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment corporation in 1995.
Question: Dr. Dourson, during your 15-year career at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency you received four EPA bronze medals in honor of your work, which included leading the group that helped create EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), chairing EPA's Reference Dose Work Group, and being a charter member of EPA's Risk Assessment Forum. What motivated you to leave behind your career at EPA and start TERA?
Answer: I founded TERA with the goal of helping to keep the practice of risk assessment current and moving forward. TERA does this through its dedication to the best use of toxicity data for developing risk assessment values -- we review and update existing values as well as create new ones.
EPA and others do this as well, of course, but their work load is overwhelming. As a result, many risk values are outdated and new risk values have not always been generated.
As a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation, TERA has several advantages over government agencies. A primary advantage is that we can solicit and accept grants from other organizations to build programs and partnerships between the private and public sectors. Moreover, peer review is critical to the development of quality risk values, and non-profit status assists in conducting peer review meetings on independently derived risk values and in supporting the travel needs of reviewers. Our mid-U.S. location allows us to more easily access scientists from across the United States. Also, experts from other countries occasionally attend our peer review meetings.
I had a very successful career at EPA and thought very long about leaving my many colleagues and friends. However, stepping out of EPA has allowed me and others who have joined TERA to broaden our network of colleagues without really leaving anyone behind. TERA can serve as a bridge between those within EPA and the private sector, while providing the much needed risk assessment services for both groups and the risk assessment community at large.
Question: When TERA first established the International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER) database, it consisted of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Health Canada, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). What are your plans for expansion?
Answer: TERA is seeking sponsors to help expand the database, both with additional chemicals and additional organizations. We know of many organizations with useful risk values, and we need help in developing the database further so that risk assessors worldwide can benefit. With the acquisition of the needed funding, contributions to which are tax exempt because of our nonprofit status, TERA will expand the database to include the World Health Organization and other important health organizations worldwide.
Currently, TERA is preparing information on 17 new chemicals for the ITER database and will make these available in September. These chemical risk assessments will include information from ATSDR, Health Canada, and the U.S. EPA. Also, two independently derived risk assessments for the chemicals acrylonitrile and hexachlorobutadiene will be analyzed at our upcoming peer review meeting on September 19-20. They will be included in the database after the peer review panel clears them and the sponsor is ready to load them. This, of course, may occur as soon as October.
Question: How does TERA's peer review process work?
Answer: The peer review program for the ITER database provides an opportunity for industry, government, academic, consulting, and other organizations to have their risk assessment values undergo an independent peer review and be made available on the ITER database on the Internet. TERA, as a non-profit corporation, is well-positioned to bring together risk assessment scientists from diverse backgrounds to provide a well-balanced review of toxicity assessments.
Peer reviewers are selected by TERA’s board of trustees and include risk assessment scientists from industry, government, academic, consulting, and other organizations. TERA strives to provide a balance of experts and affiliations for these review meetings, which are open to the public.
For more about Dourson’s experience, see his on-line biographical
information.
Story posted September 11, 1996
Copyright © 1996 by Tec-Com Inc.