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Impact of chemical structure, physico-chemical substance properties, and study design on the dermal absorption rates of pesticidal/biocidal active ingredients
Project
Project code: BfR-CHS-08-1322-418
Contract period: 01.04.2009
- 31.12.2011
Purpose of research: Applied research
In the risk assessment of products containing pesticidal/biocidal active ingredients, estimating dermal absorption rates is regularly associated with considerable uncertainty due to lacking or insufficient data. This finding contrasts the notion that dermal absorption assessment constitutes a central aspect of user/consumer protection, which most significantly influences risk characterisation and the establishment of safe/unsafe product uses.In the absence of valid data, often so-called ?default values? are applied, which, however, can only provide coarse grain estimates. In addition, both when using default values and evaluating experimental data, assessment approaches used by different evaluators may vary and often lead to considerably different results based on the same available dataset. Moreover, these assessments are frequently based on assumptions which were deduced from limited experimental evidence.Over the years, in the context of the authorisation process for plant protection as well as biocidal products, a large number of dermal absorption studies performed with both active ingredients and formulations has been submitted to and evaluated by the BfR and its predecessing organisations. As a result, the BfR has at its disposal a unique treasure of data which is only available to authorities who have been participating in the above authorisation procedures for decades. However, a systematic mining and evaluation of these data is impeded by the fact that study reports have been stored in paper archives and that - for the greatest part of these studies - detailed results have not been documented upon evaluation.An improved mining of the available database on dermal absorption constitutes an active contribution by the BfR to the avoidance of unnecessary animal experimentation as well as to the preservation of other resources, both of which are currently being called for by all major risk assessment programs in which the BfR is involved (e.g. REACH)
Section overview
Subjects
- Physiology of Nutrition
- Food Chemistry
- Toxicology