On August 6, 2013 Inside EPA reported that the Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP), convened by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 30 and August 1, 2013, urged the U.S. EPA to be more transparent in its evaluation of the initial data for the Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP). Currently, the U.S. EPA employs professional judgment to evaluate the data from tier 1, but the SAP suggested that in the future the ranking system should make use of quantitative approaches. Christoph Borgert, a consultant to the Endocrine Policy Forum (EPF), an industry group that funded the EDSP tier 1 screening, suggested assigning weights of one to three to the various results of the 11 assays used in tier 1. At the moment, the EPA analyzes data from the EDSP Tier 1 testing demanded in 2009. Depending on the results of that analysis, the EPA will demand tier 2 testing. The EPF commented that the Weight of Evidence White Paper published by the U.S. EPA omitted the criteria used by the agency. Additionally, questions have arisen whether other scientifically relevant information (OSRI) should be included at an earlier stage of the analysis. Sue Marty of the Dow Chemical Company concludes that “it would be useful to understand the analysis” employed by the U.S. EPA in the selection of chemicals for tier 2 testing.
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