OECD’s chemical hazard assessment programme to shift focus
The OECD is to review its chemical hazard assessment programme with the aim of providing a more specialised service for member countries from 2015.
Since 1992, the OECD’s Cooperative Chemicals Assessment Programme (CoCAP) has brought together member countries and other stakeholders to assess more than 1200 industrial chemicals. The OECD estimates that the Programme has helped countries save EUR 20 million by avoiding duplication and additional testing.1
The programme will be reviewed over the next 18 months to take into account the development of several comprehensive chemicals regulatory regimes in member countries and generally tighter resources. The focus will shift towards more specialised hazard assessment activities.
The programme has brought together chemical regulators, representatives from industry and NGOs from around the world who not only produced and agreed hazard assessments of chemicals but also introduced or developed concepts that were to have a far-reaching effect on chemicals management worldwide. Such concepts include a minimum set of data needed to perform a screening assessment (the Screening Information Data Set), harmonised formats for storing and retrieving data on chemicals, assessing groups of chemicals in a single assessment and the use of predictive techniques for chemical properties.
The majority of the assessments have been conducted in collaboration with industry partners through an initiative of the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA). Under the ICCA High Production Volume Chemicals initiative, chemical companies committed to assessing 1000 chemicals by working together with OECD member countries and NGOs.
Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
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