THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology
Committee to Review Advances Made to the IRIS Process
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Congressional Briefing
Wed, Apr 11, 2018
Via Conference Call – 1:30 p.m.
and
Tue, Apr 17, 2018
via Conference Call -- 10:00 a.m.
on
Progress Toward Transforming the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Program:
A 2018 Evaluation
Over the past several years, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been transforming the procedures of its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a program that produces hazard and dose‒response assessments of environmental chemicals and derives toxicity values that can be used to estimate risks posed by exposures to them. The transformation was initiated after suggestions for program reforms were provided in a 2011 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that reviewed a draft IRIS assessment of formaldehyde. In 2014, the National Academies released a report that reviewed the IRIS program and evaluated the changes implemented in it since the 2011 report.
Since 2014, new leadership of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment (NCEA) and IRIS program has instituted even more substantive changes in the IRIS program in response to the recommendations in the 2014 report. This new report reviews the EPA’s progress toward addressing the past recommendations.
This briefing was for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on April 11, 2018 and can be found, in its entirety, on the Web site of the National Academies Press.