"Emerging Environmental Issues" Workshop Planning Meeting

Monday, May 6, 2002

4-5 PM, CIIT Conference Room 121

The following people attended the meeting: Paul Schlosser, Greg Blumenthal, Rob DeWoskin Woody Setzer, Jeff Hayward, Jane Staveley, and Shawn Sager.

Agenda

• Introductions
• Theme - focus on pharmaceuticals or broader list?
• Meeting dates (want to get preliminary announcements out ASAP!)
• Meeting Structure - "straw"
  • Hazard Identification/Results of environmental surveys/analyses. What, if any, regulation and controls currently exist?
  • Risks: what can we say about effects of measured levels?
  • Management: how do we deal with this? What (if any) additional assessments and additional management is needed? (about ½ day for each topic area)
  • Speakers/topics (a few from outside the RTP area

Comment from Jonathon Wiener: Interesting questions about the USGS report on pharmaceutical residuals include: whether the FDA ever considered where the pharmaceuticals would end up after human consumption (or USDA for animal drugs), if not why not, whether Life Cycle Analysis or other methods of risk analysis could be applied to improve such decision-making, and to what extent accounting for the environmental risks of pharmaceutical residuals would make a difference in the agency's decision-making. It's a classic example of a risk-risk tradeoff.

Discussion

Potential topics and speakers:

Removal from drinking water - USEPA Cincinnati

Pharmaceutical companies - FDA doesn't look at it. There is an environmental assessment related to registration.

Christian Doughton - overview; USEPA Las Vegas

Policy overview

Integrated Risk Guidelines - Linda Tischler, NCEA Cincinnati

Aquaculture - FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine

Groundwater results - USGS; released in July

Measurements - effects of drugs on animals, e.g., bovine growth hormone

Therapeutic animal dose - residual levels in water (USDA)

Tolerance levels - how are they established, etc.

Sponsorship: USGS, FDA, USDA, USEPA, Carolina SETAC

Location: Toxicology building, Centennial Campus

Seats about 100 people in the auditorium

Use lobby for refreshments

Next Meeting: June 3, 2002; lunch - 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM