ASBESTOS NEWS
Activities to advance EPA’s understanding of asbestos toxicology and dose-response assessment

The EPA is currently updating the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) file for asbestos and has started work updating the non cancer assessment. This assessment will include current information on the toxicity and risk for the non-cancer effects. Also included in the IRIS assessment will be information obtained from a June 2003 workshop on asbestos mechanisms of toxicity that reviewed the most recent state of the science. It is projected to be completed by 2008.

The asbestos IRIS file currently contains a cancer assessment. EPA may in the future update this assessment.

Currently, validation of a transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis is being conducted on a South Carolina textile plant to better characterize historical asbestos exposures.

A study is planned that will better characterize historical asbestos exposures from the Quebec, Wittenoom, and Libby mines.

Data files from the 1980s containing quantitative analytical TEM characterizations of exposures, in vivo doses, and physical-chemical properties for more than 40 mineral and synthetic fiber samples used in both EPA and international asbestos effects research studies will be recovered and organized.

Courtesy of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency