| Key Scientific Issues in the Health Risk Assessment of Trichloroethylene Weihsueh A. Chiu, Jane C. Caldwell, Nagalakshmi Keshava, and Cheryl Siegel Scott National Center for Environmental Assessment, Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, USA Abstract
Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a common environmental contaminant at hazardous waste sites and in ambient and indoor air. Assessing the human health risks of TCE is challenging because of its inherently complex metabolism and toxicity and the widely varying perspectives on a number of critical scientific issues. Because of this complexity, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) drew upon scientific input and expertise from a wide range of groups and individuals in developing its 2001 draft health risk assessment of TCE. This scientific outreach, which was aimed at engaging a diversity of perspectives rather than developing consensus, culminated in 2000 with 16 state-of-the-science articles published together as an Environmental Health Perspectives supplement. Since that time, a substantial amount of new scientific research has been published that is relevant to assessing TCE health risks. Moreover, a number of difficult or controversial scientific issues remain unresolved and are the subject of a scientific consultation with the National Academy of Sciences coordinated by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and co-sponsored by a number of federal agencies, including the U.S. EPA. The articles included in this mini-monograph provide a scientific update on the most prominent of these issues: the pharmacokinetics of TCE and its metabolites, mode(s) of action and effects of TCE metabolites, the role of peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor in TCE toxicity, and TCE cancer epidemiology. Key words: epidemiology, mode of action, peroxisome proliferators, pharmacokinetics, trichloroethylene, risk assessment. Environ Health Perspect 114: 1445–1449 (2006) . doi:10.1289/ehp.8690 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 9 May 2006]
This article is part of the mini-monograph "Trichloroethylene Health Risks: Key Scientific Issues." Address correspondence to W.A. Chiu, U.S. EPA, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Mail Code 8623D, Washington, DC 20460 USA. Telephone: (202) 564-7789. Fax: (202) 565-0079. E-mail: chiu.weihsueh@epa.gov We thank J. Blancato, C. Chen, M. Evans, J. Jinot, J. Lipscomb, M. Okino, F. Power, and J. Schaum for their insightfulness and constructive input. We especially thank P. Preuss, J. Vandenberg, D. Bussard, P. White, and B. Sonawane for providing management support for this work. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The authors declare they have no competing financial interests. Received 27 September 2005 ; accepted 28 March 2006.
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