The ASPIS cluster, comprised of three scientific consortia (PrecisionTox, ONTOX, RISK-HUNT3R), sent a letter to the European Commission and Parliament to recognise the importance of non-animal methods in chemical safety assessment.
This came as a response to a statement made by Director ENV Ciobanu-Dordea at the European Parliament’s ‘Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety’ on 22 March 2023 (minute 18:25:22). Mr Ciobanu-Dordea expressed concerns about the precision of results given by non-animal methods.
While this opinion may reflect a genuine lack of readiness by regulatory communities to utilise chemical safety data exclusively produced by New Approach Methodologies, the ASPIS cluster is concerned that European Commission and Parliament may be misguided into believing that the current scientific knowledge and application of NAMs are insufficiently mature to be useful in assessing chemical safety.
In a letter sent on 17 April, the ASPIS cluster argued that excluding New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) from assessing chemical hazards would be unwise, as these methods have already been validated for some regulatory endpoints and continue to develop towards assessing complex adverse outcomes with greater precision than traditional animal tests.
ASPIS cluster wants to help European Commission representatives have confidence in a future regulatory paradigm built on technological innovations and based on knowing why toxicity happens instead of simply observing the pathological effects of every tested chemical. Therefore, the cluster hopes that this letter will open the door to further discourse allowing EU scientific and academic expertise and investments to limit exposure to hazardous chemicals more precisely.
