B

Agenda

November 7–8, 2013
Room 100
Keck Center of the National Academy of Sciences
500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington, DC

November 7, 2013

Session 1: Background and Framing

Objectives:

• Provide an overview of chemical exposures from pesticides, to cosmetics, to food, and to industrial processes and explain why the workshop will focus on new and existing industrial chemicals.
• Briefly highlight what is known now that was not known 20 years ago about the links between chemical hazards and human health.
• Describe a public health approach to industrial chemical assessments based on identifying sentinel health events, delineating a cascade of preventive interventions (primary, secondary, and tertiary), and using public health surveillance to monitor and improve the system.

Session 2: Current Programs for Safeguarding the Public from Potential Health Risks of Industrial Chemicals: Successes and Areas for Improvement

Objectives:

• Provide an overview of what is working and where gaps may be present in a variety of existing regulations and industrial chemical safety programs.
• Explain that the manufacturer of a chemical is primarily informed about its toxicity information but may not know specifically how the chemical will be used, whereas the processer of the chemical is primarily informed about its uses and exposure information (among workers and consumers) and may use the chemical in ways the manufacturer never considered.
• Propose suggestions for how to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of regulatory programs.

Moderator: Dennis Devlin, Ph.D., Environmental Health Advisor, ExxonMobil Corporation

Session 3: Models for Environmental Risk Assessment and Exposure Science

Objectives:

• Provide brief summaries of key meetings and reports that have been held and released on environmental risk assessment and exposure science.
• Comment on where all this research may be leading:

o   How will this inform work to improve policy, assessment, and action strategies related to industrial chemical safety programs?

o   What more needs to be done to allow for better modeling, monitoring, and measurement of industrial chemical exposures?

• Present a status update of a new National Research Council committee tasked to develop a decision framework for evaluating potentially safer chemical substitutions.

Moderator: Susan Santos, Ph.D., M.S., Assistant Professor, Rutgers School of Public Health

Session 4: Improved Approaches to Chemical Prioritization for Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Objectives:

• Build on the presentations in Session 2 that highlighted existing chemical prioritization frameworks from a variety of settings.
• Discuss better approaches to chemical prioritization (forward looking) to help inform targeted testing schemes and improve risk assessment and management strategies.

Moderator: Andrew Maguire, Ph.D., Roundtable Member

November 8, 2013

Session 5: Actions to Reduce the Risk of Chemicals in Our Society

Objectives:

• Discuss the topic of prevention from an environmental stewardship approach.
• Cover broad concepts of sustainability and economics, and more technical issues of developing safer chemical alternatives.
• Provide industry examples of voluntary efforts to reduce use of chemicals in consumer products and internal decision making that led to these outcomes.

Moderator: Al McGartland, Ph.D., Director of the National Center for Environmental Economics, U.S. EPA

Session 6: Reflections on the Workshop and Concluding Remarks

Objective:

• Provide a moderated panel discussion to synthesize previous presentations and discussions (focusing on Sessions 1, 2, 4, and 5) and thoughts on possible next steps.

Moderator: Frank Loy, Roundtable Chair