We have a new paper out, a contribution to a manuscript led by the Evidence Based Toxicology Collaboration. (This and other recent developments in the field of systematic review for chemical risk assessment are featured in our overcite newsletter, which you can read here.) Full text is open-access and available via the Archives of Toxicology website.
We managed to submit a few last-minute comments to EFSA’s consultation on the use of weight-of-evidence methods in conducting scientific assessments. We weren’t able to go into much detail but the general gist was that, when conducting scientific assessments, the following should be ensured: 1. A full process is followed for ensuring that the right […]
This month we are launching overcite, a new newsletter covering the latest developments in systematic review methods in environmental health research. overcite will be issued monthly. Each newsletter will contain: brief synopses of the most interesting methodology papers and systematic reviews published in the previous month; a list of open public consultations to which systematic review researchers […]
Systematic review methods, a technique widely used in medicine for making best use of existing evidence to determine the effectiveness of medical interventions, are of increasing interest in chemical risk assessment. The idea is that the transparency and robustness of systematic methods will present further opportunities for ensuring chemicals policy is made on a solid […]
Latest draft of EDC Criteria only partly addresses concerns raised in scientists’ letter As the debate about how to identify endocrine disruptors for regulation in the EU nears a head, the EU Commission has published another draft of its proposed criteria for identification of EDCs. These will be discussed and potentially voted on by Member […]
We are signatories to a second open letter to the European Commission, raising further concerns about the proposed criteria for classification of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). The new letter is a response to the recently-published redraft of the criteria, due to be discussed by Member States and experts this Friday 18 November. While the redrafted criteria […]
Last week saw the Royal Society of Medicine host a conference, “Association or causation in miasmas and mixtures: current reflections on Bradford Hill’s 1965 contribution to public health“. I co-chaired a session on how we incorporate the great ABH’s thinking on causation into the systematic review methods we are developing for accurately summarising bodies of […]
3 Year, funded PhD Evidence synthesis methods for 21st-century chemical risk assessment Assessing risks to health posed by chemical substances to human health and the environment requires careful scrutiny of toxicology, epidemiology and chemical fate & behaviour studies. The problem is, current methods for gathering and appraising this evidence result in important studies being missed, […]
We have responded to a consultation by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the EU Commission’s proposed criteria for identification of endocrine disrupting chemicals. These comments reiterate much of what we said in a letter to the EU Health Commissioner which we recently co-authored, and our response to the EU’s public consultation on their […]
As part of its strategy to become a leading publisher of evidence syntheses and methods papers in the field of environmental health, the journal Environment International has developed a new set of standards and operating procedures for publication of systematic reviews.* These are detailed in an editorial “Raising the standard of systematic reviews published in Environment International“. In […]