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ENVIRONMENT
UNPUBLISHED DATA RELEASED BY FIRMS Existing toxicity information leads to fewer tests on HPV chemicals
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PROGRAM TO GENERATE
basic toxicity information on thousands of industrial chemicals is triggering the release of large amounts of unpublished data, according to EPA. This means far fewer tests than initially thought are actually needed to produce the required data, EPA says in a status report on its High Production Volume (HPV) Challenge Program. Chemical manufacturing firms are searching the scientific liter ature to find published data and are combing through their own files for unpublished studies. Under the H P V initiative, chemical manufacturers are vol untarily testing some 2,800 sub stances made in or imported in to the U.S. in amounts exceeding 1 million lb per year. The aim of the program is to fill in informa tion gaps about basic health and environmental effects of these substances, their environmental fate, and physical properties such as boiling points. Thus far, existing information fills 94% of the health and envi ronmental data gaps identified for H P V substances, EPA says. Meanwhile, some test spon sors are proposing to conduct tests to generate information be yond that which EPA is seeking in the H P V program. For in stance, sponsors for four chemi cals indicated that they would conduct genetic toxicity studies in animals, although those data are not required in the H P V pro gram. In three of these cases, the tests would be used to meet reg ulatory requirements in countries outside the U.S., EPAsays. In the fourth, the sponsor decided to do HTTP://PUBS.ACS.ORG/CEN
the study for product steward ship reasons because earlier tests indicated that the compound caused genetic toxicity in cell cul tures, according to the agency EPA urges companies to ex plain the rationale for any tests they propose beyond the ones needed in the H P V program. "The lack of an explanation leads to needless speculation about why the tests were pro posed and the generation of [public] comments requesting
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explanations for the proposed tests." In addition, EPA recommends that basic physicochemical prop erties such as the boiling point of individual chemicals be measured rather than estimated. These val ues are plugged into models that calculate environmental trans port and other properties, so us ing estimated figures "multiplies the uncertainty" in model results, according to the agency Thus far, 469 companies and 187 consortia of manufacturers have agreed to sponsor 2,155 HPV compounds, the agency says. EPA plans to get data on all the H P V chemicals, even those that don't have a sponsor volunteering to do testing. The agency will is sue regulations requiring those studies and plans to issue one such rule covering 37 substances in the spring of 2002.-CHERYL HOGUE
INAUGURATION
ETH's New Chemistry Building Opens In Zurich •he chemistry de partment at the Swiss Federal Insti tute of Technology (ΕΤΗ) has moved from a build ing, parts of which were constructed more than 100 years ago, in the cen ter of Zurich to a gleaming new $300 million building at the institute's Hônggerberg site on the outskirts of the city. GOOD INVESTMENT New chemistry building has three The inauguration of the "fingers" with state-of-the-art laboratories. chemistry building was marked by four days of festivities, including professor at Columbia University, who pre an inaugural symposium titled "Frontiers in sented a lecture at the symposium. "It repre Chemistry in a Global Society." More than sents an investment in chemistry that is sim 9,000 visitors toured the new building, lisply not seen in the U.S. at the same level." tened to lectures about chemical research at The department now joins ETH's depart ΕΤΗ, watched demonstrations, and carried ments of biotechnology, biology, and physics, out experiments. which have been located at Hônggerberg for many years. The institute's departments of "I do not know of anywhere else where a materials science, microbiology, and applied building of this cost, and so well laid out to biology will move to the site over the next few meet the needs of chemists, could be pro years.-MICHAEL FREEMANTLE duced," remarked Ronald Breslow, chemistry
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