Dioxin risk reassessment stalls; EPA to create new review panel

摘要

The four-year-long EPA reassessment of dioxin has been delayed again, Agency officials said Sept. 21 at an EPA Science Advisory Board (SAB) Executive Committee meeting. Completion of the reassessment is now expected next September, according to William Farland, director of the EPA National Center for Environmental Assessment. The added time is needed to address SAB criticisms of the reassessment. Farland laid out a complex schedule in which EPA and non-Agency scientists will rewrite health assessment chapters on dose-response and risk characterization. EPA will also add updated and more thorough data in other chapters in the 2000-plus-page health, exposure, and risk characterization document (see box).