Use of QSARs for Risk Assessment of Chemicals in the European Union

摘要

The European legislation on control and evaluation of chemicals requires a risk as-sessment of chemicals for human health and the environment. The risk assessment studies areperformed by the different member states of the European Union (EU). Detailed technical guid-ance on carrying out the risk assessment for human health and the environment is currentlybeing published by the European Commission (EC). This technical guidance document includesinformation on the use of QSARs in the risk assessment process. The objective of this chapter isto summarize the main principles on the selection, evaluation, and use of QSARs that are ex-pected to be considered within the framework of EU risk assessments. In addition, an overviewis presented on the present experiences and future possibilities for QSARs in the EU risk assess-ment. It can be concluded that the need for reliable QSARs will become of paramount impor-tance in the near future when the "low production volume chemicals" must be assessed.