Children's Risk Assessment. Assessing the risks of environmental substances to children is one of the most active areas in environmental health. A number of new regulations and statutes have attempted to address this contentious issue. Children may be more or less sensitive to environmental chemicals and can have higher exposures per body weight due to higher ratios of inhalation rate and food consumption to body weight. Sciences has been very active in this area. We have conducted several child-specific risk assessments for common chemicals and consumer products. We are also actively involved in EPA's Voluntary Children's Chemical Evaluation Program ( VCCEP). For example, for a trade association, we developed a framework for conducting exposure assessments under the VCCEP, which we published in Risk Analysis ( abstract).

Preparation of Concise International Chemical Assessment Documents (CICADs). This work is done for the International Program on Chemical Safety of the World Health Organization. Concise International Chemical Assessment Documents (CICADs) provide internationally accepted reviews on the health and environmental effects of chemicals or combinations of chemicals. The purpose of the documents is to characterize chemical hazard and dose response and to provide examples of exposure estimation and risk characterizations at the national or local level. The documents summarize the information considered critical for risk characterization in sufficient detail to allow independent assessment but are concise in not repeating all the information available on a particular chemical.

Review of Toxicity Reference Values and Exposure Characterization for Chemicals to Support the Development of Health-based Toxicity Reference Values. This work was performed under a contract with the Ministry of the Environment of Ontario. The goal of the project was to provide background information and research on a group of environmentally-relevant chemicals for the purpose of developing health-based toxicity reference values. Toxicity reference values are doses of a chemical at which humans can be exposed for a specified period of time without adverse health effects. The Ministry of the Environment developed an AMD Framework (Adopt-Modify-Develop) for selecting toxicity reference values for deriving health-based standards and for use in site-specific risk assessments. This framework provided the Ministry with an international database of toxicity reference value information to determine if existing toxicity reference values could be adopted or modified, or had to be developed de novo.

Risk Assessment: Chromium. Dr. Gibb, the president of Sciences International, is the author of the most detailed study of lung cancer and clinical irritation among occupationally-exposed chromium workers ever conducted. The study was used by OSHA in 2006 to establish a new Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for hexavalent chromium; Dr. Gibb was invited as the first witness at the OSHA hearings on the proposed PEL in 2005. Dr. Gibb also provided peer review of the December 2004 New Jersey Chromium Workgroup Report which evaluated risks from chromium in soil.

Asbestos. Asbestos was once commonly used throughout the world for its fire-proofing abilities. Over 40 years ago, however, asbestos was found to be associated with a number of lung diseases, including asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. Sciences International has evaluated asbestos risk associated with air releases from industrial facilities and soil contamination at sites where asbestos has been used and assessed risk from consumer products which historically included small amounts of asbestos.