Comment on “Identifying and Prioritizing Chemicals with Uncertain Burden of Exposure: Opportunities for Biomonitoring and Health-Related Research” and “Beyond the Light under the Lamppost: New Chemical Candidates for Biomonitoring in Young Children”

摘要

In their exhaustive attempt to identify priority chemicals to evaluate in the Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes(ECHO) trial, Pellizzari et al. (2019) consulted no fewer than 21databases and eventually identified 155 likely candidates.However, the authors were unable to identify the chemicals U.S.children are exposed to, instead stating that “Tens of thousands ofchemicals have been approved for use in the United States”(Pellizzari et al. 2019). This indicates the lack of information aboutthe number of synthetic chemicals Americans are exposed to.The Science Selection summary of the paper by Pellizzariet al. (2019) refers to “40,000 chemicals approved for commercial use in the United States” (Seltenrich 2020). This is incorrect.Chemicals do not undergo an approval process by the U.S.Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They are entered intothe U.S. EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Inventoryupon 90 d notice (“Premanufacture Notice”) of the intent to manufacture or import, with numerous exemptions (Table 1).Accordingly, only a fraction of the commercially available chemicals in the United States are in the TSCA Inventory.