Michael Faust’s research while affiliated with University of Bremen and other places

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Publications (19)


Graphic representation of the life cycle of chemicals (red) and coverage by different regulatory frameworks (blue = covered, grey = not covered, see list of abbreviations below). The centre represents four regulatory frameworks addressing chemical pollution and water quality [1]. BPR—Biocidal Products Regulation (EC/528/2012); Cosmetics—Cosmetic Products Regulation (EC/1223/2009); DWD—Drinking Water Directive (98/83/EC); GWD—Ground Water Directive (2006/118/EC); IED—Industrial Emissions Directive (2010/75/EU); Medicinal Products—Regulation on Procedures for the authorisation and supervision of Medicinal Products for human and veterinary use and establishing a European Medicines Agency (EC/726/2004; Mining Waste—Mining Waste Directive (2006/21/EC); MSFD—Marine Strategy Framework Directive (2008/56/EC); PPP—Plant Protection Products Regulation (EC/1107/2009); PRTR—European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR), https://prtr.eea.europa.eu/#/home; REACH—Regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (EC/1907/2006; RoHS—Directive 2011/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32011L0065; Rotterdam Conv—Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade; SAICM—Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management SSD—Sewage Sludge Directive (86/278/EEC); Stockholm Conv.—The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; Toys—The Toy safety Directive, https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/toys/safety_en; UWWTD—Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (91/271/EEC); WFD—Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC)
The conceptual framework for operationalizing the solutions-focused approach, illustrating how it assists in risk assessment and management of chemical pollution in relation to water quality [8]. RBSP River Basin-Specific Pollutants
Increase coherence, cooperation and cross-compliance of regulations on chemicals and water quality
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September 2019

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139 Reads

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8 Citations

Environmental Sciences Europe

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Jenny Lexén

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Tina Skårman

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An analysis of existing regulatory frameworks for chemicals reveals a fragmented situation with a number of regulatory frameworks designed for specific groups of chemicals; for protection of different end-points and covering different parts of the chemicals´ life cycle stages. Lack of- and fragmented information on chemicals (properties, use, emissions as well as fate, occurrence and effects in the environment) limit the ability for assessment and early action, and existing legislation would benefit from more transparency and openness of information and knowledge. To achieve harmonisation of existing legislation and an efficient control of chemical contamination of European waters, a solution-focused approach is proposed including increased ambitions (in monitoring, modelling, and risk assessment), cooperation and dialogue. More holistic and efficient development and implementation of existing legislation can be achieved by better cooperation, harmonisation and information exchange between different regulatory frameworks and by improved science–policy interactions. The introduction of an organisational structure and incentives for cooperation are proposed. Cooperation should focus on harmonisation of advanced monitoring activities, modelling, prioritisation, risk assessment and assessment of risk prevention (‘safe by design’) and minimisation options. A process for dialogue and information exchange between existing policy frameworks and with stakeholders (industry, NGO´s, etc.) should be included to identify feasible options for mitigation as well as regulatory gaps—on local and EU-scales. There is also a need to increase international cooperation and strengthen global agreements to cover the full life cycle of chemicals (produced and consumed globally) and for exchanging knowledge and experiences to allow early action. This recommended action would also provide knowledge and a framework for a shift towards a sustainable chemistry approach for chemical safety based on a “safe by design” concept.

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Mixture risks threaten water quality: the European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS recommends changes to the WFD and better coordination across all pieces of European chemicals legislation to improve protection from exposure of the aquatic environment to multiple pollutants

September 2019

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184 Reads

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55 Citations

Environmental Sciences Europe

Evidence is mounting that chemicals can produce joint toxicity even when combined at levels that singly do not pose risks. Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) defined for single pollutants under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) do not protect from mixture risks, nor do they enable prioritization of management options. Despite some provisions for mixtures of specific groups of chemicals, the WFD is not fit for purpose for protecting against or managing the effects of coincidental mixtures of water-borne pollutants. The conceptual tools for conducting mixture risk assessment are available and ready for use in regulatory and risk assessment practice. Extension towards impact assessment using cumulative toxic unit and mixture toxic pressure analysis based on chemical monitoring data or modelling has been suggested by the SOLUTIONS project. Problems exist in the availability of the data necessary for mixture risk assessments. Mixture risk assessments cannot be conducted without essential input data about exposures to chemicals and their toxicity. If data are missing, mixture risk assessments will be biassed towards underestimating risks. The WFD itself is not intended to provide toxicity data. Data gaps can only be closed if proper feedback links between the WFD and other EU regulations for industrial chemicals (REACH), pesticides (PPPR), biocides (BPR) and pharmaceuticals are implemented. Changes of the WFD alone cannot meet these requirements. Effect-based monitoring programmes developed by SOLUTIONS should be implemented as they can capture the toxicity of complex mixtures and provide leads for new candidate chemicals that require attention in mixture risk assessment. Efforts of modelling pollutant levels and their anticipated mixture effects in surface water can also generate such leads. New pollutant prioritization schemes conceived by SOLUTIONS, applied in the context of site prioritization, will help to focus mixture risk assessments on those chemicals and sites that make substantial contributions to mixture risks.


Fig. 1 Graphical presentation of the proposed multiple lines-of-evidence approach for the identification of priority substances and priority mixtures under the EU Water Framework Directive
Prioritisation of water pollutants: the EU Project SOLUTIONS proposes a methodological framework for the integration of mixture risk assessments into prioritisation procedures under the European Water Framework Directive

September 2019

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306 Reads

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27 Citations

Environmental Sciences Europe

Current prioritisation procedures under the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) do not account for risks from chemical mixtures. SOLUTIONS proposes a multiple-lines-of-evidence approach to tackle the problem effectively. The approach merges all available evidence from co-exposure modelling, chemical monitoring, effect-based monitoring, and ecological monitoring. Full implementation of the proposed methodology requires changes in the legal text in adaptation to scientific progress.


Fig. 1 Recommended test battery of in vivo (orange) and in vitro (green) bioassays. ER estrogen receptor, AhR aryl hydrocarbon receptor
Effect-based methods are key. The European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS recommends integrating effect-based methods for diagnosis and monitoring of water quality

February 2019

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1,160 Reads

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217 Citations

Environmental Sciences Europe

Abstract The present monitoring and assessment of the chemical status of water bodies fail to characterize the likelihood that complex mixtures of chemicals affect water quality. The European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS suggests that this likelihood can be estimated with effect-based methods (EBMs) complemented by chemical screening and/or impact modeling. These methods should be used to identify the causes of impacted water quality and to develop programs of measures to improve water quality. Along this line of reasoning, effect-based methods are recommended for Water Framework Directive (WFD) monitoring to cover the major modes of action in the universe of environmentally relevant chemicals so as to evaluate improvements of water quality upon implementing the measures. To this end, a minimum battery of bioassays has been recommended including short-term toxicity to algae, Daphnia and fish embryos complemented with in vitro and short-term in vivo tests on mode-of-action specific effects as proxies for long-term toxicity. The likelihood of adverse impacts can be established with effect-based trigger values, which differentiate good from poor water quality in close alignment with Environmental Quality Standards for individual chemicals, while taking into account mixture toxicity. The use of EBMs is suggested in the WFD as one avenue to establish the likelihood of adverse effects due to chemical pollution in European water systems. The present paper has been written as one component of a series of policy briefs to support decisions on water quality monitoring and management under the WFD.


Table 1 Mapping EU research project contributions to elements of Mixture Risk Assessment (MRA).
Table 2 Mapping other relevant EU mixture activities to elements of Mixture Risk Assessment (MRA).
Current EU research activities on combined exposure to multiple chemicals

August 2018

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762 Reads

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213 Citations

Environment International

Humans and wildlife are exposed to an intractably large number of different combinations of chemicals via food, water, air, consumer products, and other media and sources. This raises concerns about their impact on public and environmental health. The risk assessment of chemicals for regulatory purposes mainly relies on the assessment of individual chemicals. If exposure to multiple chemicals is considered in a legislative framework, it is usually limited to chemicals falling within this framework and co-exposure to chemicals that are covered by a different regulatory framework is often neglected. Methodologies and guidance for assessing risks from combined exposure to multiple chemicals have been developed for different regulatory sectors, however, a harmonised, consistent approach for performing mixture risk assessments and management across different regulatory sectors is lacking. At the time of this publication, several EU research projects are running, funded by the current European Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020 or the Seventh Framework Programme. They aim at addressing knowledge gaps and developing methodologies to better assess chemical mixtures, by generating and making available internal and external exposure data, developing models for exposure assessment, developing tools for in silico and in vitro effect assessment to be applied in a tiered framework and for grouping of chemicals, as well as developing joint epidemiological-toxicological approaches for mixture risk assessment and for prioritising mixtures of concern. The projects EDC-MixRisk, EuroMix, EUToxRisk, HBM4EU and SOLUTIONS have started an exchange between the consortia, European Commission Services and EU Agencies, in order to identify where new methodologies have become available and where remaining gaps need to be further addressed. This paper maps how the different projects contribute to the data needs and assessment methodologies and identifies remaining challenges to be further addressed for the assessment of chemical mixtures.


Regulate to reduce chemical mixture risk

July 2018

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109 Reads

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292 Citations

Science

Humans and wildlife are continuously exposed to multiple chemicals from different sources and via different routes, both simultaneously and in sequence. Scientific evidence for heightened toxicity from such mixtures is mounting, yet regulation is lagging behind. Ensuring appropriate regulation of chemical mixture risks will require stronger legal stimuli as well as close integration of different parts of the regulatory systems in order to meet the data and testing requirements for mixture risk assessment.




Mixtures of endocrine disrupting contaminants modeled on human high end exposures: An exploratory study in rats

February 2012

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144 Reads

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101 Citations

International Journal of Andrology

By diminishing the action of androgens during gestation, certain chemicals can induce irreversible demasculinization and malformations of sex organs in the male rat after gestational exposure. Studies with mixtures of such anti-androgens have shown that substantial combined effects occur even though each individual chemical is present at low, ineffective doses, but the effects of mixtures modelled based on human intakes have not previously been investigated. To address this issue for the first time, we selected 13 chemicals for a developmental mixture toxicity study in rats where data about in vivo endocrine disrupting effects and information about human exposures was available, including phthalates, pesticides, UV-filters, bisphenol A, parabens and the drug paracetamol. The mixture ratio was chosen to reflect high end human intakes. To make decisions about the dose levels for studies in the rat, we employed the point of departure index (PODI) approach, which sums up ratios between estimated exposure levels and no-observed-adverse-effect-level (NOAEL) values of individual substances. For high end human exposures to the 13 selected chemicals, we calculated a PODI of 0.016. As only a PODI exceeding 1 is expected to lead to effects in the rat, a total dose more than 62 times higher than human exposures should lead to responses. Considering the high uncertainty of this estimate, experience on lowest-observed-adverse-effect-level (LOAEL)/NOAEL ratios and statistical power of rat studies, we expected that combined doses 150 times higher than high end human intake estimates should give no, or only borderline effects, whereas doses 450 times higher should produce significant responses. Experiments indeed showed clear developmental toxicity of the 450-fold dose in terms of increased nipple retention (NR) and reduced ventral prostate weight. The 150-fold dose group exhibited significantly increased NR. These observations suggest that highly exposed population groups, especially women of reproductive age, may not be protected sufficiently against the combined effects of chemicals that affect the hormonal milieu required for normal male sexual differentiation.


State of the art assessment of endocrine disruptors

January 2011

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867 Reads

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215 Citations


Citations (16)


... The organic compounds such as pharmaceuticals, personal care products, steroids, artificial sweeteners, industrial products, etc., collectively called emerging contaminants (ECs), are increasingly being reported across the globe (Ramírez-Malule et al., 2020). Many of the ECs are known or suspected to cause adverse environmental effects and are therefore required to be removed (Faust et al., 2019). Wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent is one of the major contributors of ECs in the environment (Rout et al., 2021). ...

Reference:

Fate of emerging contaminants in a sequencing batch reactor and potential of biological activated carbon as tertiary treatment for the removal of persisting contaminants
Prioritisation of water pollutants: the EU Project SOLUTIONS proposes a methodological framework for the integration of mixture risk assessments into prioritisation procedures under the European Water Framework Directive

Environmental Sciences Europe

... However, as the chemical industry continuously innovates, currently developed tools for environmental risk assessment struggle to keep up with the diversity of chemicals and their uses [2]. Pollution occurs across the whole life cycle of a product from its production until its final disposal, whilst regulation typically only addresses the point at which products are placed on the market, which is only a small part of that lifecycle [3]. The increasing amount and diversity of emerging chemicals on the EU market that can enter water resources, means it is important to consider whether changes to chemical and water resources management need to be made in order to inexpensively safeguard water resources in their natural state. ...

Increase coherence, cooperation and cross-compliance of regulations on chemicals and water quality

Environmental Sciences Europe

... 4 Current regulatory frameworks assess chemical safety one substance at a time, neglecting the cumulative toxicity of chemical mixtures. 5,6 The total number of chemicals tested by 2022 was 12,714,7 corresponding to less than 0.2% of the chemicals potentially present in the environment. The low percentage of tested chemicals can be explained by the low throughput of traditional risk assessments, which require animal testing. ...

Mixture risks threaten water quality: the European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS recommends changes to the WFD and better coordination across all pieces of European chemicals legislation to improve protection from exposure of the aquatic environment to multiple pollutants

Environmental Sciences Europe

... As many bioassays needed to be tested, the sample volume for each bioassay was restricted. One main motivation in this special monitoring project was the need to deal with low water sample volumes (e.g., water extracts) as are used in surface-water monitoring [29,30], and still enable a reliable biological effect analysis with standard biotests. These biotests included in vitro tests with different cell lines [31] and organismic biotests such as microalgae, Daphnia and zebrafish embryos. ...

Effect-based methods are key. The European Collaborative Project SOLUTIONS recommends integrating effect-based methods for diagnosis and monitoring of water quality

Environmental Sciences Europe

... For the past 20 years, different EU and national agencies have been making conscious efforts to protect humans and the environment through several frameworks that monitor and regulate different chemicals circulating in the market. Several research initiatives have been carried out under the EU's Horizon 2020 research programme [3], including the European Human Biomonitoring Initiative (HBM4EU) [4], which focused on basic human biomonitoring research with an emphasis on producing scientific results that can be translated into policy. The European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) [5] was established based on these earlier initiatives and in support of the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability towards a Toxic-free Environment [6] and the Zero Pollution ambition of the European Green Deal [7]. ...

Current EU research activities on combined exposure to multiple chemicals

Environment International

... But in an environmental sample the mixture of all substancesand not only a few substances of interest -contributes to overall ecotoxicity. Thus, applying ecotoxicological tests is seen as a valuable complemental method to chemical analysis, making it possible to include and evaluate the overall toxicity of all bioavailable substances in a mixture [3][4][5]. At the same time, the sample volumes for the different tests are often restricted, as obtaining and preparing water samples for monitoring is elaborate and costly. ...

Regulate to reduce chemical mixture risk
  • Citing Article
  • July 2018

Science

... These herbicides are used worldwide in sugarcane cultivation as well as in the conventional fields of this study. However, barely nothing is known about how a mixture of herbicides (cocktail effect) can affect populations of soil organisms in the field (Kortenkamp et al., 2009;Relyea, 2009). ...

State of the art report on mixture toxicology
  • Citing Article
  • January 2009

... The strain (SAG 211-15) was bought from the experimental phycology and culture collection of algae at the University of Goettingen. Algae were cultured under synchronous conditions as described by Faust et al. (2001) and Altenburger et al. (1990). Cultures were grown in sterile glass vessels (Supporting Information, Figure S4) under the following parameters: a bubbling regime of compressed air and 1.5% CO 2 , at 28°C ± 2°C, and under illumination of saturated white light at an intensity of 400 µmol photons s −1 m −2 in a 14:10-h light:dark cycle. ...

Evaluation of the Isobologramm method for the assessment of mixtures of chemicals
  • Citing Article
  • August 1990

Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety

... But in an environmental sample the mixture of all substancesand not only a few substances of interest -contributes to overall ecotoxicity. Thus, applying ecotoxicological tests is seen as a valuable complemental method to chemical analysis, making it possible to include and evaluate the overall toxicity of all bioavailable substances in a mixture [3][4][5]. At the same time, the sample volumes for the different tests are often restricted, as obtaining and preparing water samples for monitoring is elaborate and costly. ...

State of the Art Report on Mixture Toxicity
  • Citing Article
  • January 2009

... To fulfil legal requirements related to the protection or enhancement of biodiversity, an adverse effect needs to be demonstrated not in individual organisms but in a population (Kortenkamp et al., 2011;EFSA Scientific Committee, 2016). Field studies and monitoring and population modelling are possible approaches for population level assessment of endocrine-mediated adverse effects (ECHA/EFSA, 2018). ...

State of the art assessment of endocrine disruptors