Category Archives: Uncategorized
Student creativity
Exam in a course on chemical risk assessment. Exam question: What makes Ecological Risk Assessment particularly challenging, in comparison to Human Health Risk Assessment? Student Answer: It’s hard to know whether a Daphnia is suffering from schizophrenia or depression. Who could argue against that?
a new project: NICE
NICE week, that! We’ve just been awarded the resources for a “strong research environment”, funded by the Swedish Research Council (Formas). The project’s acronym is NICE, which stands for “Novel Instruments for effect-based assesment of chemical pollution in coastal ecosystems”. Formas is funding the research environment with 25 million SEK (roughly 2.8 million €) over a period of 5 years. I’ll provide more details soon, we’ll put up a dedicated website for NICE asap. But for a starter, here’s the … Continue reading
Comments to the SCHER opinion on mixture (eco)toxicity
The public consultation on the ”opinion concerning Toxicity and Assessment of Chemical Mixtures” by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER) and the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR) ended on the 15th of September. Below are the comments that I submitted. For the ease of reading things in context, I first provide the inital question, then the reaction of the Scientific Committees (all of which are … Continue reading
A small difference that matters…
Maybe it’s because those two icons looks so similar? Or perhaps people want to “spread the news”? Whatever it is, the scenario is always the same: Somebody sends around an email to a group of people, containing perhaps an invitation to a conference, a request, a question or something similar. And of course, all recipients are listed in plain sight in the “to” field. So events follow their their natural c(o)urse: a couple of minutes later, your inbox becomes flooded … Continue reading
Follow-up report on chemical mixtures
Here is a follow-up report on chemical mixtures that we recently finalized for the Swedish Chemicals Agency (KemI), this time focused on REACH and its specific circumstances. We propose two approaches for assessing mixtures in a regulatory context: A mixture-specific assessment factor (MAF), for which we outline the scientific justification, and its limitations Scenario-specific modeling The report contains two annexes, one providing a detailed background on the two classical mixture toxicity approaches, Concentration Addition and Independent Action (Response Addition), the … Continue reading
US EPA seems to change its position on BPA
Here is an interesting article from the New York Times on the position of the US EPA on Bisphenol A, the notorious endocrine disrupter. As the title says, the US EPA’s position on the hazards of the compound seem to be changing (quite drastically, I would say). Interestingly enough, Activists on both sides of the passionately debated issue said they were disappointed in the government’s action. Maybe that is actually a good sign? Especially as it seems as if the … Continue reading
Comment on the recent publication scam by Elsevier and Merck
Here is another follow-up on the recent publication scam by Elsevier and Merck. The whole story can be found on The Scientist’s blog here and on the links provided in this Wikipedia article. Thomas