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Reflections on chemical risk assessment or how (not) to serve society with science

June 2021
The Science of The Total Environment 792(3)

DOI:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148511

Authors:

J.C. Hanekamp

University College Roosevelt

Edward J. Calabrese

University of Massachusetts Amherst

In this paper, we want to shed light on the demand for chemical and toxicological data growing ever more faster than science can supply and other aspects of assessing chemical risks, including the demand for ‘ever greater safety’. The treatise that follows is on the one hand rooted in well-established toxicological theory and on the other hand utilises emerging toxicological insights. Both theoretical conceptions and empirical substantiations are discussed to build up a perspective that produces an outlook on innovation and proliferates insights into our inexorable and invaluable exposure to ‘the chemical’. We propose that in toxicology, with the implicit mandatory linear routine of dose-response, there is no tangible scientific drive to understand and unearth the actual empirical dose-response curve for chemicals under scrutiny. This can and should be improved upon as to advance the science of toxicology and to optimise current and future regulatory efforts.

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Reﬂections on chemical risk assessment or how (not) to serve society

with science

Jaap C. Hanekamp

a,b,

⁎,Edward J. Calabrese

Science Department, University College Roosevelt, Middelburg, the Netherlands

Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Morrill I, N344, Amherst, MA 01003, USA

HIGHLIGHTS

•The demand for toxicological risk as-

sessments is ever-increasing.

•The chemical risk assessment paradigm

needs to overcome the natural-synthetic

divide.

•Hazard analyses of carcinogens needs to

be replaced by full-on risk assessments.

•The available toxicological models are too

simplistic in their linearity.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

abstractarticle info

Article history:

Received 20 April 2021

Received in revised form 11 June 2021

Accepted 13 June 2021

Available online xxxx

Editor: Michael N Moore

Keywords:

Hazard

Risk

Toxicological models

Risk assessment

Safety standards

Organohalogens

In this paper, we want to shed light on the demand for chemicaland toxicological data growing ever more faster

than science can supply and other aspects of assessing chemical risks, including the demand for ‘ever greater

safety’. The treatise that follows is on the one hand rooted in well-established toxicological theory and on the

other hand utilises emerging toxicological insights. Both theoretical conceptions and empirical substantiations

are discussed to build up a perspective that produces an outlook on innovation and proliferates insights into

our inexorable and invaluable exposure to ‘the chemical’. We propose that in toxicology, with the implicit man-

datory linear routine of dose-response, there is no tangible scientiﬁc drive to understand and unearththe actual

empiricaldose-responsecurve for chemicals underscrutiny. This can and should be improvedupon as to advance

the science of toxicology and to optimise current and future regulatory efforts.

1. Bridging the natural-synthetic rift–a prolegomenon

In the 1970s, a Dutch science showcalled “Chemistry is Everywhere”

tried to convey the message that, indeed, chemistry is all around us. It

was a brave attempt to introduce the general public to the ﬁeld of chem-

istry, which is far less removed from our daily lives than most people

thought back then and still think today. More precisely, we are, to

some extent, part of that same chemistry we study at the same time.

And that brings with it an enigma of substantial proportions.

That enigma, perhaps the word puzzle is more apt, has to do with the

ostensibly unequivocal rift between the so-called the synthetic and the

natural. The latter, ‘natural chemistry’such as DNA, proteins, glucose,

Science of the Total Environment 792 (2021) 148511

⁎Corresponding author at: Department ofEnvironmentalHealth Sciences,University of

Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

E-mail address: j.hanekamp@ucr.nl (J.C. Hanekamp).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148511

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

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Reflections on chemical risk assessment or how (not) to serve society with science

Abstract

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