Food Safety Risk Analysts Creating Internet Community A group of food safety professionals specializing in risk analysis have taken the first step toward banding together to build an Internet community. (Posted September 14, 2000.)

U.S. EPA OPPT Makes Screening-level Exposure Tool Available on Web Site. The United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) has announced that the beta version of the Exposure and Fate Assessment Screening Tool (E-FAST) is now available via the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/exposure/docs/efast.htm. E-FAST provides screening-level estimates of general population, consumer, and environmental exposure.

The Exposure Assessment Tools and Models home page offers a downloadable version of E-FAST, a copy of the E-FAST Documentation Manual, and a list of some frequently asked questions. OPPT encourages users to forward any comments they may have on the beta-version of E-FAST to Tom Brennan at the following e-mail address: brennan.thomas@epa.gov.

In addition to the E-FAST link, the Exposure Assessment Tools and Models home page has a general discussion about the role of exposure assessment and how to appropriately apply models. The home page also contains detailed information on several exposure assessment tools developed and distributed by OPPT that will be available in the future from this web site. (Posted 13 June 2000.)

Over 250 Risk Abstracts Posted Online Today. RiskWorld posted more than 250 risk abstracts online today in its Risk Abstracts Library, which now contains over 3,000 online abstracts. The latest additions are abstracts of papers presented at the Society for Risk Analysis - Europe’s 1998 conference on “Risk Analysis: Opening the Process.” These abstracts cover what organizers called “the seven pillars of risk analysis”: perception of risks, management of risks, analysis of pervasive risks, environment and health issues, personal and collective involvement, assessment and valuation, and risks of objects and products. Risk scientists and professionals from 25 countries participated in the conference, in which some sessions reportedly were so popular that latecomers had to sit on the floor. The abstracts are located at http://www.riskworld.com/Abstract/ab8me008.htm. (Posted 15 June 2000.)

New Risk E-mail Discussion List Is Launched. Charles N. Haas, professor of environmental engineering at Drexel University, has launched a moderated e-mail list named RISKSCI for the purpose of discussing scientific and technical issues surrounding the various aspects of risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication. The list also supports discussion on the policy implications of risk analysis and the risk analysis implications of policies and is available for the dissemination of announcements of a technical nature, such as symposia, publications, and available positions. Subscription instructions are available in RiskWorld's Newsgroups department. (Posted 7 June 2000.)

TERA Organizes Independent Peer Review of Assessment of Skin Cancer Risk from Use of Coal Tar-Containing Shampoos. An independent expert peer panel will convene on June 5 and 6, 2000, at the University of Cincinnati to review a document titled "Estimation of Lifetime Skin Cancer Risk from the Use of Coal Tar-Containing Shampoos," which the K. S. Crump Group of ICF Consulting has prepared for Whitehall-Robins Healthcare, a subsidiary of American Home Products. The non-profit corporation Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), which is dedicated to the best use of toxicity data for risk assessment, is organizing the review meeting under its International Toxicity Estimates for Risk (ITER) program.

The risk assessment document reviews the human and animal data on exposure to coal tar--a common ingredient in some types of over-the-counter dandruff shampoos--and considers species differences that would impact species extrapolation. Using the epidemiology data on patients treated with coal tar ointments, the 95% lower bound on the lifetime dose associated with the target risk level of one in 100,000 was estimated. Monte Carlo analyses were used to estimate both the amount of coal tar ointment used and the lifetime average daily intake for coal tar shampoo users.

The public is welcome to observe this meeting but must pre-register, as seating is limited. A registration fee will cover the cost of materials and breaks. Information about TERA's peer review program, including a list of approved reviewers and summaries of discussions from previous meetings, is available at http://www.tera.org/peer/. For more information or to pre-register, contact Jacqueline Patterson, telephone (513) 521-7426, email patterson@tera.org. (Posted 17 May 2000.)

RW Commentary: A Failed Personal Risk Analysis. "Twenty years and two months ago, Mt. St. Helens re-awoke, after roughly 125 years of dormancy, with a small ash eruption. About 10 days later, after poring over topographic maps and picking a mountain pass two valleys removed from the mountain, I drove to the end of a plowed Forest Service road south of Randle, Washington. The next morning I fell in with a geology graduate student from the University of Idaho and we skied four or five miles, through new snow on top of a new ash layer, four or five miles up to Elk Pass. It was snowing too hard to see the mountain, but we did smell it a couple of times. The next morning I had to head back home; he skied back up to Elk Pass and had a nice view of the mountain." Jim Dukelow, a senior research engineer with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Washington, reminisces about his experiences related to the eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980. Read his full commentary. (Posted 16 May 2000.)

Global Spread of AIDS Declared U.S. National Security Threat. An article published in The Washington Post on April 30 and summarized in newspapers across the nation on May 1 reports that the Clinton administration believes the pandemic of AIDS in Africa, which is expected to be repeated in Asia, India, and parts of the former Soviet Union, is a threat to U.S. national security because of its destabilizing effect on partial democracies. The National Security Council has been charged with reassessing the U.S. efforts to combat the worldwide spread of the disease, and a White House interagency working group is developing a series of expanded initiatives to drive international efforts. The administration is doubling its budget request to $254 million to combat AIDS overseas, considered by most to be totally inadequate. The Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS says that it would take $4 billion to institute adequate prevention and treatment programs in Africa alone. Since the 1980s, more than 16 million people have died from AIDS, of which 60% have been in sub-Saharan Africa. (Posted May 2, 2000.)

Senators Voinovich and Breaux Call for Risk Assessments and Cost-Benefit Analyses to Precede New Air Quality Standards. The April 18 issue of Risk Policy Report says that Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) and John Breaux (D-LA) introduced a bill (S.2362) on April 5 that would revise the Clean Air Act by requiring that no new air quality standards be issued until risk assessments and cost-benefit analyses have been conducted. The bill is modeled on provisions included in the Safe Drinking Water Act amendments of 1996. Environmentalists say that requiring cost analyses would allow industry to use economic concerns as a defense against new standards, and an EPA source says that implementing cost analyses as a prerequisite to rulemaking would be almost impossible. A copy of the bill has been made available online by the IWP Extra document service. (Posted May 2, 2000.)

The True Story About Erin Brockovich? According to an article by Michael Fumento that was published in The Washington Times on April 4, the real success of the heroine in the film “Erin Brockovich” was that she was able to convince about 650 current or past residents of the town of Hinkley, California, that they were suffering from numerous health problems because they had been exposed to chromium-6 in their drinking water, and she further convinced the Pacific Gas & Electric plant to cut their losses by settling for $333 million. Of this amount, $133.6 million went to lawyers and $2 million went to Ms. Brockovich. Her clients are left with much smaller amounts and fears of imminent death for the remainder of their lives—unless they somehow learn that scientific evidence and epidemiology studies that have become available since the settlement have shown that the chromium-6 in their drinking water could not give them terminal illnesses, or, in fact, any illnesses at all. (Posted May 2, 2000.)

Controversies About Genetically Modified Foods Continue Unabated. It is impossible to keep track of all the internet (and print) publications about genetically modified foods, not to mention the national and international feuds that are under way. With respect to the latter, BINAS Online reports that “the European Union’s highest court has stated that France did not have the right in 1998 to suspend approval of three genetically modified (GM) maize strains already cleared at EU level.” The decision is said to be a defeat for Greenpeace and the French farm unions. 

In the United States, opinions abound. Dennis T. Avery, director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute, argues that without genetically engineered foods, (more) millions of the earth’s inhabitants will face starvation. By the year 2050, he predicts, the world’s demand for food will triple. With 37% of the earth’s land surface already being farmed, high-yield crops will be imperative. (See Avery articles 1, 2, and 3.) 

Scientists have weighed in on both sides of the debate. In a September 1999 article in Nature Biotechnology, two prominent entomologists, Anthony M. Shelton of Cornell and Richard T. Rousch of the University of Adelaide, Australia, wrote that the famous Monarch butterfly test performed by Cornell assistant professor John E. Losey and reported in the May 20 issue of Nature was unrealistic, and the results could have been expected. (In the laboratory test, high “doses” of pollen from genetically engineered commercial corn killed monarch butterfly larvae.) The researchers also questioned the results of two other studies that reported the resistance of the corn borer and the pink bollworm to Bt toxins. 

In an earlier article, Paul E. Arriola of Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois, concluded that one possible danger of genetically engineered crops was being overlooked: the escape and spread of engineered genes from transgenic crops to wild relatives (weeds), the results of which are yet to be determined. This argument was used by Greenpeace in opposing the European Parliament’s recent refusal to take a tough line on GM liability. 

Concern about this aspect of genetically engineered crops also resulted in one of the recommendations included in the National Research Council’s report, Genetically Modified Pest Protected Plants: Science and Regulation, which was released on April 5 and is itself the subject of high controversy (see "NRC Report" below). The report calls for further research to “assess gene flow and its potential consequences.” 

The debate on genetically modified foods has taken on a life of its own during the last year (see previous RW articles 1, 2, 3, and 4), and one has to wonder if decisions will finally be made on the basis of objective examinations of the science, irrespective of political and economic pressures.--LSA (Posted May 2, 2000.)

NRC Report Asserting Safety of Genetically Modified Pest-Protected Plants Is Blasted by Congressmen, Others. The National Research Council issued its report Genetically Modified Pest Protected Plants: Science and Regulation on April 5 despite demands by Representatives Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Jack Metcalf (R-WA) since February that the GMPP study be abandoned because of conflicts of interest of some staff and panelists (see correspondence). The congressmen were joined by several activist organizations, all of whom focused on the short tenure of Michael J. Phillips as the staff study director before he accepted employment with the Biotechnology Industry Organization. The independence of seven of the twelve panelists was also questioned (see BINAS story). 

Charged with investigating the risks and benefits of GMPP plants and their regulation, the panelists started by reviewing a 1987 white paper, Introduction of Recombinant DNA-Engineered Organisms into the Environment, for the continued validity of its three major conclusions. They affirmed the earlier report, stating that the committee “found no strict dichotomy between or new categories of the health and environmental risks that might be posed by transgenic and conventional pest-protected plants (points 1 and 2), and recognizes that the magnitude of risk varies on a product by product basis (point 3).” The report makes several specific research recommendations and said that there is an urgency to complete the regulatory framework for transgenic pest-protected plant products. The chair of the committee was Perry Adkisson of Texas A&M University. (Posted May 2, 2000.)

Safety Assessment vs. Risk Assessment: Distinction Not Universally Recognized. In a paper published in USDA ORACBA News, Clark Carrington and Michael Bolger of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration point out that the oldest formal decision process in regulating exposure to potentially toxic substances, referred to as the NOAEL/SF-UF (No-Observed-Adverse-Effect-Level/Safety Factor-Uncertainty Factor) procedure, and a formal risk assessment may start with the same data, but they do not produce the same result. A safety assessment yields a dose or a regulatory standard, whereas a risk assessment produces a prediction, with some attendant uncertainty. While the prediction may serve as the basis for a standard-setting process, it is not itself a standard. Carrington and Bolger say this distinction is not universally recognized, and, in their view, current attempts to remake the simpler NOAEL/SF-UF procedure into a risk assessment procedure cannot possibly work, the essential difficulty being that a dose is not a risk. (Posted May 2, 2000.)

OERR Virtual Earth Day 2000 Forum Opens Today. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Emergency and Remedial Response (OERR), with the support of the National Technology Services Division (NTSD), is hosting a virtual forum to be broadcast from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EDT), April 26, 2000, as part of EPA's celebration of Earth Day's 30th anniversary. The OERR Virtual Earth Day 2000 Forum, which is located at  http://www.epa.gov/superfund/topics/virtual/, will enable EPA to demonstrate and test virtual communication technologies such as video conferencing, live chats, application sharing, and streaming broadcasts to bring together government policy makers, citizens, students, business people, public health officials, and scientists in an interactive Internet setting. In addition to their original broadcasts, the presentations will be available for viewing at any time after each original broadcast has ended. Transcripts of the live chats will be posted as soon as possible. (Posted April 26, 2000.)

Earth Day 2000 Web Links. RiskWorld posted the following links to web sites that commemorated Earth Day's 30th anniversary:

Council on Environmental Quality Earth Day 2000 Report: A Healthy Environment for the 21st Century  (Whitehouse CEQ)

Earth Day 2000 Information at US Environmental Protection Agency's Web Site (U.S. EPA)

Earth Day 2000 Online at the Envirolink Network (Envirolink)

Earth Day History at Earthday.Net (Earthday.Net)

Earth Day History at U.S. EPA Web Site (U.S. EPA)

Earth Day Letter from President Clinton and Vice President Gore (Whitehouse CEQ)
(Posted April 21, 2000.)

Flaws Found in Research Linking Infant Illnesses to Indoor Air Pollutant. When the illnesses of 10 infants in the mid-1990s were linked to their exposure to the indoor air pollutant Stachybotrys (a toxin-producing mold), the findings were cited in public health guidelines, Congressional testimony, and media news stories.  The resulting outcry influenced public building closures, cleanup, and litigation.  Now the Center for Disease Control has completed a new review of the original research and has found that “serious shortcomings in the collection, analysis, and reporting of data resulted in inflated measures of association and restricted interpretation.”   A summary of the CDC’s recently completed investigation is summarized on line at http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4909a3.htm and is available in full at http://www.cdc.gov/od/ads/ref29.pdf.   

In addition, a peer-reviewed paper by Daniel Sudakin, a medical doctor and researcher who specializes in toxicology, more broadly reviews the limits of current research regarding health risks from exposure to Stachybotrys. Sudakin’s paper "Stachybotrys chartarum: Current Knowledge of Its Role in Disease" is on line in a Medscape journal (users must fill out a brief registration form for access, which is free).  To read the paper, go to http://hiv.medscape.com/Medscape/GeneralMedicine/journal/
2000/v02.n01/mgm0229.suda/mgm0229.suda.html. (Posted April 20, 2000.)

Wilson Questions EPA’s Failure to Seek Advice on Applicability of Atrazine Report Results. James D. Wilson, an expert in evaluating the safety of chemicals and characterizing their risks, says that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recent report on the pesticide atrazine ably describes and interprets the observations that relate to the proposed mechanism by which treatment of Sprague-Dawley rats increases age-specific incidence of mammary tumors in females of that strain. The proposal makes sense in light of the information presented, and it should be accepted and acted upon by EPA. The report’s conclusions bear directly on EPA’s decision regarding what exposure to atrazine should be considered safe. Unaccountably, the accompanying instructions from EPA to its Science Advisory Panel, which is reviewing the report, prohibit the panelists from commenting on the applicability of the report’s conclusions to that decision. Without having their advice on the issue of whether the mammary tumors associated with atrazine exposure in this one strain of rats has any relevance for human cancer risk, EPA has decided that the observation will be considered “relevant.” It did not advance any reasons for reaching this decision; thus, there is no justification for doing so. (Posted April 19, 2000.)

Energy Investment Opportunities in Newly Liberalizing Economics Fraught with Risks. In today’s world, economic privatization and political liberalization are the dominant global forces of change with dramatic impacts on international relations. Once closed markets are opening to Western multinational corporations, and reform-minded governments are inviting bids on state-owned assets. As a result tremendous opportunities exist for both the international suitors and the governments and industries of the liberalizing nations, particularly in the energy sector. Such opportunities, however, entail considerable political, legal, and economic risks, the realization of which has caused the largest players in the global energy market to re-evaluate their investment strategies. While some efforts have been abandoned or slowed, many organizations will proceed ahead, hoping to benefit from increasing energy use in the liberalizing nations, which is expected to surpass that of the industrialized world by 6% in 2020. (Paper by Charles Tooman; posted April 19, 2000.)

SEC Considering Softening Environmental Accounting Principles for Foreign Companies Listed on Stock Exchanges. After a review period ending May 23, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may not require foreign companies traded on U.S. stock exchanges to abide by the same environmental accounting principles as U.S. companies. Currently, the United States and Canada are among the few countries that don’t accept the less stringent rules drawn up by the London-based International Accounting Standards Committee. Friends of the Earth say that any lessening of the requirements for foreign companies would be an abdication of the SEC’s responsibilities to investors to provide them with sufficient information to identify current and potential environmental expenses. (Article by Donald Sutherland, posted April 14, 2000.)

EPA Buried Environmental Justice Plans, Says Report. In its March 20, 2000, issue, Risk Policy Report says that the Environmental Protection Agency buried two 1994 internal reports outlining how environmental justice could be incorporated “into virtually every aspect of environmental permitting, enforcement and monitoring.” The burial was due to concerns that the massive reforms called for in the memos would have been politically untenable. The memos were issued by EPA’s Office of General Counsel (February 25, 1994, “Environmental Justice Law Survey”) and its Department of Justice (July 25, 1994, “Environmental Justice and Title VII”) in response to President Clinton’s Executive Order 12898 ordering federal agencies to develop plans for addressing environmental justice concerns in minority and low-income areas. Environmental justice attorneys are charging that the EPA hid the memos and that the agency has done essentially nothing in enforcing environmental justice. They further argue that EPA’s issuance in 1998 of an “interim” guidance for conducting investigations into complaints under Title VI and its publication of several brochures on siting of hazardous waste facilities in sensitive populations amounts to “virtually nothing.” Industry sources say that EPA was correct in shelving the memos that would undoubtedly invite strong opposition and that broad guidelines would be better than a formal rulemaking effort. The environmental justice attorneys say they will take a serious look at their legal options. (Posted March 27, 2000.)

Inside Washington Publishers Offers Online Documents. The publisher of Risk Policy Report and 25 other newsletters (e.g., Inside EPA Weekly Report, Inside OSHA) maintains an online service at http://www.iwpextra.com that provides government reports and other documents relating to policy and other developments in the areas of environment, health care, OSHA, FDA, and civil aviation. The two EPA memos cited in the preceding story were published at the site. (Posted March 27, 2000.)

NHEERL Symposium To Explore Human Health and Ecological Risk Assessment Indicators. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory will hold its fifth annual symposium on June 6-8, 2000, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel Conference Center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The symposium will explore commonalities in selection, application, interpretation and evaluation of indicators for human health and ecological condition and will examine common indicator threads through presentations of stressor-based topical areas where the stressors affect both humans and sensitive environmental resources. The symposium web site is located at http://www.lcgnet.com/epasymposium/. (Posted March 16, 2000; updated March 21.)

New Report Released On Line: U.S. National Assessment Health Sector Executive Summary. The Johns Hopkins University's Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change released on line today (March 15, 2000) a report on the first 18 months of its congressionally mandated study of the potential impacts of climate variability and change on human health. "The Potential Health Impacts of Climate Variability and Change for the United States: Executive Summary of the Report of the Health Sector of the U.S. National Assessment," which will also be published in the April 2000 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives (Volume 108, Number 4), is located at http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov/topic/global/patz-full.html. (Posted March 15, 2000.)

Society of Toxicology Congressional Fellowship Applications Due May 3. Members of the Society of Toxicology who are actively engaged in the science of toxicology and have an established record in their areas of expertise are eligible to apply for the SOT Congressional Fellowship, which allows experienced scientists an opportunity to contribute scientific and technical input to the process of developing public policy for one year. The work of the fellow focuses on the scientific issues that are currently being debated in the legislative process. Applications are due May 3, 2000, for the position that will begin around the first of January 2001. More information is available at http://www.toxicology.org/Awards/awards_congfellowapp.html.
(Posted March 13, 2000.)

Early Registration Deadline for Bayesian Workshop Is March 10. Those planning to attend the workshop on "Bayesian Approaches to Human Health Risk Assessment: Combining Different Kinds of Information" will save $50 if they register by the early registration deadline this Friday, March 10. The workshop will be held at Williamsburg Hospitality House in Williamsburg, Virginia. For more information, read the RiskWorld news brief of February 24, below. (Posted March 6, 2000.)

Respected Risk Teachers to Lead Workshop on Bayesian Approaches to Human Health Risk Assessment.  Well-regarded risk professors and analysts are joining together to teach a workshop on Bayesian approaches to human health risk assessment in March.  Aimed at toxicologists and other scientists not well acquainted with the theory and practice of Bayesian methods, the workshop is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Electric Power Research Institute and is being organized jointly by Resources for the Future, the Society for Risk Analysis, and EPA. (Posted February 24, 2000.)

Center Launches New Internet Resource on Nuclear Weapons Cleanup.  Resources for the Future has pulled together a vast network of information about the cleanup of the nation's nuclear weapons complex. The online resource includes links to more than 50 organizations that have done work related to the cleanup, from the federal government to environmental and other non-profit groups. (Posted February 24, 2000.) 

Automated Garbage Trucks May Add to Litter Problem. A University of Florida study found that automated garbage and recycling trucks may significantly increase litter along roadsides, particularly in subdivision neighborhoods, reports the Daily University Science News. (Posted February 24, 2000.)

EPA Web Site Back Online. The web site of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is officially back online  although several of the agency's resources and databases remain inaccessible over the Internet.  The EPA web site (http://www.epa.gov), which was shut down unexpectedly last week in order to review and improve its security measures, serves approximately 10 million viewers annually.  The EPA has posted a page that explains the status of the site as it reopens at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/welcome-back.htm. (Posted February 22, 2000.) See related RiskWorld news article.

UN Says Cyanide Spill Among Europe's Worst. A Reuters article on EnviroLink News Service reports that a United Nations said on Friday that a cyanide spill from a Romanian gold mine that has killed thousands of fish in Hungary and Yugoslavia was one of the worst river pollution accidents in Europe. The cyanide, blamed on a spill last month at a Romanian gold smelter half owned by Australia's Esmeralda Exploration Ltd, was carried by the Tisza through Hungary to Yugoslavia where it continued flowing down the Danube. (Posted February 22, 2000.)

EPA Scurries to Get Back Online; Risk Database Up and Running.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced today that it expects to have part of its web site back online by Tuesday, February 22.  "We don't have any details yet on which parts of the web site will be available first, but we do know that the earliest date that access to any of our web site will be available is on Tuesday," an EPA spokesperson told RiskWorld.   EPA was forced to shut its web site down unexpectedly on Wednesday following computer security concerns raised by  Chairman of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va.

Meanwhile, the non-profit Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment has one of EPA's major risk resources, the IRIS database, up and running online at its site at http://www.tera.org.  (Posted February 18, 2000.)  

EPA Forced to Shut Down Web Site.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was forced to shut down its web site on Wednesday, removing its vast on-line resources from the Internet. The unexpected move apparently occurred in response to pressure by the Chairman of the U.S. House Commerce Committee, Rep. Tom Bliley, R-Va.,  who feared that the EPA web site was vulnerable to potential hacker attacks. (Posted February 17, 2000.)

The Law that Sought to Change the World of Pesticides. The third article in a series that "shows how politics — not science — drives pesticide regulation in the United States" was published today by MSNBC and Newhouse News Service.  Today's article looks at the history of the Food Quality Protection Act, the "law that sought to change the world of pesticides" and that resulted from a benchmark 1993 study on how pesticides might affect children. (Posted February 15, 2000.)

Pesticide’s Path of Tests, Acceptance.  MSNBC and Newhouse News Service reports on the battle between Bayer Corp. and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over how to evaluate the risks of the pesticide Guthionhad (the organophosphate pesticide azinphos methyl), which is used on apples. (Posted February 11, 2000.)

New Ruling Forces States, Cities to Reveal Environmental Costs as Incurred. A sweeping new standard will change the way states, cities, and towns account for their environmental performance to taxpayers by requiring a more detailed financial reporting of agency environmental programs, reports free-lance writer Donald Sutherland. (Posted February 2, 2000.)

Abstracts of International Papers on Agricultural Safety and Health Now On-line in RiskWorld. The abstracts of nine peer-reviewed papers published in the May 1999 issue of the Journal of Agricultural Safety and Health are now on-line in RiskWorld. Topics include identifying work-related fatalities in the agriculture industry; antinuclear antibodies in mice exposed to pesticides; a community participation approach to farm health and safety concerns; hazardous working conditions in oceanic and maritime fishing; fatal head injuries among Hispanic farmers in Colorado (1983-1992); changes in lung function in farmers exposed to grain dust; back pain-related absenteeism in small and large companies; history of the Agricultural Health and Safety Network; and reproductive outcome in mice exposed to organophosphorus pesticides. (Posted February 2, 2000.)

Using Futures for Price Risk Mitigation Requires Clear Risk Management Strategy. In a paper published in RiskWorld, risk management associate Charles Tooman points out that although futures are widely used in the mitigation of price risk, using futures without a clearly defined risk management strategy can threaten the accomplishment of a firm’s long-range objectives. Specifically, futures may not always be the most appropriate choice when attempting to reduce risk and keep transaction costs low when considering extreme price volatility. Measures that address operation and price risk are central to an effective overall trading and risk management program. Such risk management guidelines and limits provide an important framework within which transactions may be executed and business opportunities considered. (Posted January 27, 2000.)

TERA is currently soliciting funds as a tax-exempt [501(c)(3)] organization to further expand ITER with high-quality assessments for hundreds of risk values from the World Health Organization and the International Programme on Chemical Safety, along with government agencies such as RIVM in the Netherlands. TERA also provides an independent peer review program four times per year. Independent values that are developed outside of governmental agency programs must undergo such review before they are placed in ITER. For more information about ITER or peer review, contact Jacqueline Patterson at patterson@tera.org. (Posted January 26, 2000.)

RiskWorld Opens On-line Bookstore.  RiskWorld, an on-line publication devoted to covering news and views on risk issues, today opened its on-line bookstore.  Arranged by topics, the on-line store's index invites readers to browse by subject of interest.  Topics include everyday risks, technological risks, software and computer risks, risk assessment and analysis, women's health, children and teenagers (health and behavior), financial and investment risks, toxicology, risk communication, risk management, and others.  When available, a brief description of each book is provided, and all books can be ordered directly on-line.  Visit the bookstore at http://www.riskworld.com/books. (Posted January 6, 2000.) 

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