ANALYSIS OF OECD SUBSTANCE TESTING PROGRAMME NANOMATERIALS DOSSIERS
The Sponsorship Testing Programme of the Working Party on Manufactured Nanomaterials (WPMN) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) started in 2007 with the aim to test a selection of 13 representative nanomaterials for many endpoints. The main objectives of the programme were to better understand what information on intrinsic properties of the nanomaterials might be relevant for exposure and hazards assessment and assess the validity of OECD chemicals Test Guidelines for nanomaterials. The testing programme concluded in 2015 with the publication of dossiers on 11 nanomaterials: 11,500 pages of raw data to be analysed and interpreted.
The WPMN has not drawn conclusions on the data quality, but some stakeholders participating in EU policy-making – notably the European Chemicals Agency and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre – presented the dossiers as containing much scientific information that provided a better understanding of their nano-specific human health and environmental impacts. Industry federations and individual companies echoed the views, highlighting that there was enough information available to discard most concerns about potential health or environmental risks of manufactured nanomaterials.
As for the OECD, it concluded, even before the publication of the dossiers, that “many of the existing guidelines are also suitable for the safety assessment of nanomaterials” and “the outcomes (of the sponsorship programme) will provide useful information on the ‘intrinsic properties’ of nanomaterials.”
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), the European Citizens’ Organisation for Standardisation (ECOS) and the Öko-Institut commissioned scientific analysis of these dossiers to assess the relevance of the data for regulatory risk assessment.
The resulting report: Analysis of OECD WPMN dossiers regarding the availability of data to evaluate and regulate risk, provides insights illustratating how most of the information made available by the sponsorship programme is of little to no value in identifying hazards of the nanomaterials or in assessing their risks.
The analysis shows that:
- Most studies and documents in the dossiers contain insufficient characterisation data about the specific nanomaterial addressed (size, particle distribution, surface shape, etc.), making it impossible to assess what material was actually tested.
- This makes it impossible to make any firm statements regarding the nano-specificity of the hazard data published, or the relationship between observed effects and specific nano-scale properties.
- Less than 2% of the study records provide detail on the size of the nanomaterial tested. Most studies use mass rather than number or size distribution (so not following scientifically recommended reporting practice).
- The absence of details on the method used to prepare the nanomaterial makes it virtually impossible to correlate an identified hazard with specific nanomaterial characteristic. Since the studies do not indicate dispersion protocols used, it is impossible to assess whether the final dispersion contained the intended mass concentration (or even the actual presence of nanomaterials in the test system), how much agglomeration may have occurred, and how the preparation protocols may have influenced the size distribution.
- There is not enough nano-specific information in the dossiers to inform about nano-characteristics of the raw material that influence their toxicology. This information is important for regulators and its absence makes information in the dossier irrelevant to develop read-across guidelines.
- Only about half of the endpoint study records using OECD Test Guidelines (TGs) were delivered using unaltered OECD TGs, thereby respecting the Guidelines’ requirements. The reasons for modifications of the TGs used in the tests are not clear from the documentation. This includes whether the study record was modified to account for challenges related to specific nanomaterial properties or for other, non-nano-specific reasons.
- The studies do not contain systematic testing of the influence of nano-specific characteristics on the study outcome, and they do not provide the data needed to assess the effect of nano-scale features on the Test Guidelines. Given the absence of fundamental information on nanomaterial characteristics, the dossiers do not provide evidence of the applicability of existing OECD Test Guidelines to nanomaterials.
The analysis therefore dispels several myths created by some stakeholders following publication of the dossiers and provides important perspective for the governance of nanomaterials. In particular, the analysis makes recommendations to:
- Systematically assess the validity of existing Test Guidelines for relevance to nanomaterials
- Develop Test Guidelines for dispersion and other test preparations
- Define the minimum characteristics of nanomaterials that need to be reported
- Support the build-up of exposure database
- Fill the gaps in current dossiers with characterisation information, preparation protocols and exposure data
Read full report.
Read executive summary.
Download full dataset.