Human Exposure to Chemicals From Normal Use of Household Products and Articles

Abstract

P-422 Abstract: The INTARESE project (Integrated Assessment of Health Effects of Environmental Stressors in Europe – contract number: 018385) is designed to support the implementation of the European Environment and Health Action Plan, by providing methods and tools that are essential to enable integrated assessment of environment and health risks. An assessment methodology, which will be developed within the project, will be tested and demonstrated on a number of different policies issues: transport, housing, agricultural land use, water, chemicals in household products/articles, wastes, climate. As part of the project, seven European agencies (RIVM, CSTB, KTL, HPA, IC, IV and AFSSET) will work to design and implement methodologies and tools to assess risks due to aggregate and cumulative human exposures to chemicals via a normal use of household products and articles. The objectives and the methodology that will be used for the consumer exposure part will consist of: - Gathering information from stakeholders (goods producers, suppliers, formulators, retailers of products, consumers NGOs, poison centres…) and, based on partner’s experience, pre-select ten chemical agents, - Making an inventory of products (among biocides, paints, lacquers and varnishes, fragrances, furniture, cosmetics, wipes) containing these 10 chemical substances, - Determining the composition of the products: find the concentration of the substances in the preparations by using databases (e.g. Poison Centres databases, SEPIA/ORPILA databases, SPIN database…), - Assessing the volumes of chemicals used at home thanks to consumption surveys data associated with data on products composition and thanks to a collaboration with producers and retailers of products and with European Chemical Bureau, - Making an inventory of toxicity data (mechanism of action, target organs, level of toxicity) of the 10 substances by using databases (e.g. IUCLID, US EPA, IRIS, WHO IPCS, INERIS…), - Selecting four or five chemical substances, based on data collected in the previous steps, - Defining exposure profiles: by listing existing databases and surveys about products usage patterns and lifestyle/ time-activity patterns, by building individual realistic exposure profiles from existing data (marketing data and involvement of stakeholders) and by identifying data needs, - Assessing aggregate exposure for each substance and each profile; which implies a review of existing exposure models, - Assessing a cumulative risk for each exposure profile. The main deliverables of this work will be: - a Policy scoping Report (November 2006) - a Chemical Assessment Protocol (Spring 2007) Internet site: http://www.imperial-consultants.co.uk/intarese.org/home.htm