OECD Publishes Report on Alternative Testing Strategies in Risk Assessment of Manufactured Nanomaterials Led by Vireo Advisors Collaboration

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a report entitled Alternative Testing Strategies in Risk Assessment of Manufactured Nanomaterials:  Current State of Knowledge and Research Needs to Advance Their Use. Vireo Advisors coordinated the effort led by Canada with input from experts from academia, government, industry, and non-profit organizations in a Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) organized workshop. The focus was to identify and evaluate the potential for alternative testing strategies (ATS) for manufactured nanomaterials (MNs) to inform human health, environmental, exposure aspects of ATS in risk assessment. ATS includes methods that reduce, refine or replace the use of animal testing.  

As stated in the report, the OECD project found knowledge gaps in the research and data currently available for MNs, inconsistencies in the methods used to test MNs as well as in the reporting of the data found. Action items were also given for the advancement of alternative testing strategies throughout the MNs community. OECD expects that the conclusions from the report can contribute to the development and implementation of relevant alternative testing strategies for manufactured nanomaterial testing that will expedite the ability to identify high-risk manufactured nanomaterials, and lead to more rapid, cost-effective, and reliable safety testing for specific risk management decision contexts. Additional project efforts were reported in a Special Series in the August 2016 issue of the SRA journal Risk Analysis.