How to communicate bioavailability science in regulation of organic chemicals?

The bioavailability of organic chemicals in soil and sediment is an important area of scientific research. However, this area remains only partially recognized by regulators and industries working in the environmental sector. Based on the positive experiences already made with metals, regulators have recently started to consider bioavailability within retrospective risk assessment (RA) frameworks (e.g. of contaminated sites). By doing so, realistic decision-making in terms of hazard definition and priority considerations finally resulting in optimised cost allocation can be achieved, rather than relying on the established approach of using total-extractable concentrations. However, implementation of biovailability remains difficult because scientific developments on bioavailability are not always translated into ready-to-use approaches for regulators and, therefore, no integrated approach for implementation is available. For the same reason, bioavailability remains largely unexplored within prospective regulatory frameworks that address the approval and regulation of organic chemicals. To facilitate the inclusion of bioavailability within more realistic RA frameworks, agreement and common understanding between scientists and regulators is required. In this identified communication need, we should try to answer the following questions: 1) What general message should be communicated, and which specific topics or benefits from bioavailability science can attract the interest of the regulators? 2) What is the best approach to convey these messages to the regulatory community? And 3) How can we establish a dialogue to verify that the messages are being considered and can be adapted to the satisfaction of all stakeholders? This contribution has been prepared by the six proposing authors that represent a bigger group of authors from academia, industry and regulation, who started this process, discussed bioavailability concepts and methods, and arrived at an agreement. The developments achieved at the Special Science Symposium focused on bioavailability, held in 2014 by SETAC Europe (http://sesss10.setac.eu/), led to a featured paper (Environ. Sci. Technol. 49:10255-10264, 2015). We propose a simplified approach in which the assessments of soil/sediment and the target chemicals should be based on two measurable values: the total extractable concentration, and the bioavailable concentration as measured with robust and reproducible chemical or biological methods.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Ortega Calvo, J. J., Harmsen, J., Parsons, J. R., Römbke, J., Aitken, Michael D., Semple, Kirk T.
Format:	póster de congreso biblioteca
Published:	Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 2016-11-06
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10261/159043
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