Midland, MI - March 31, 2009
Background: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced a new approach to advance the science upon which the agency bases its regulatory decisions and policies. This "Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals" outlines a new scientific approach that will allow the EPA to assess risks from many chemicals and mixtures by adopting new toxicity testing methods that use recent advances in molecular biology, genomics, and computational sciences. (More information: http://www.epa.gov/osa/spc/toxicitytesting/ )
In response to the EPA's new "Strategic Plan for Evaluating the Toxicity of Chemicals," and as Congress considers how best to address the need for effective and consistent approaches for evaluating and ensuring the safe and environmentally sound use of chemical products, The Dow Chemical Company has issued the following statement:
"As one of the largest chemical companies in the world and a global leader in product safety, The Dow Chemical Company welcomes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) new strategic plan for applying advances in molecular biology and computational sciences to transform toxicity testing and risk assessment practices.
Chemical products provide many benefits to society, and they must be managed in a responsible way to minimize adverse effects on humans and the environment. We take this responsibility very seriously at Dow, and are committed to ensuring that our products meet and exceed regulatory standards and are manufactured, stored, transported, used, disposed and recycled in a manner that shows high regard for human health, safety and environmental stewardship.
Dow toxicologists have been engaged in conducting collaborative research with university-based scientists to evaluate how these new tools outlined by the EPA can be used to enhance product safety. Demonstrating support, Dow shared its findings at the recent Society of Toxicology meeting held in Baltimore. We believe these tools show great promise for reducing the time, costs and number of animals needed to assess chemical safety.
Dow agrees with the EPA in recognizing that this new approach will require a deliberate process before it is fully ready to assess human risk with confidence. We look forward to working with the EPA and other stakeholders to ensure the data generated from these tools complements the wealth of existing product safety information to further enhance protection of human health and the environment.
As we continue to support the EPA in its establishment of effective testing practices and regulatory policy for the industry, we also remain focused on our aggressive product safety leadership commitments, including our Product Safety Assessment initiative - a voluntary process we have created for characterizing and managing product risk and communicating product information to the public, at www.DowProductSafety.com. This web site also includes linkages to recent peer-reviewed publications summarizing research conducted by Dow scientists who are working to advance the science that underpins product safety assessments.
About Dow
For Editorial Information:
Stacey Siler
The Dow Chemical Company
989 636-4155
Drew Lumm
GolinHarris
312 729-4146
dlumm@golinharris.com
