Paul A. Locke, MPH, DrPH
Associate Professor
Director, Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) Program in Environmental Health Sciences
Co-Director, Certificate Program in
Humane Sciences and Toxicology Policy
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health
Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Division of Toxicology
615 North Wolfe Street
Baltimore, MD  21205
410-502-2525 (office)
plocke@jhsph.edu

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In June 2007, the US National Academy of Sciences issued a report entitled “Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy.”  Commissioned by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this report recommended that EPA move away from its current system of toxicity testing – which is focused on animal toxicology and apical endpoints -- to a system that is based on human cell lines and pathways of toxicity.

The lecture discuses several key policy questions that have arisen, or will arise, as EPA considers implementation of the Academy’s vision and strategy.  More specifically, this lecture will examine whether the current legal and policy framework fertile ground for implementation of NAS report.  After a brief discussion of the history and development of risk assessment, especially its legal underpinnings, this lecture will focus on the societal and scientific need for reform in toxicity testing, and whether current US federal laws create barriers, or provide incentives for implementing the NAS vision and strategy.  The lecture will conclude by analyzing the process of validation of new test methods.