Cancer Risk Assessments: An Overview

Abstract

The process of risk assessment and risk management is widely recognized in the United States as a tool for making policy decisions to control risk associated with toxic chemical exposures. This two-step process, first to evaluate risk and then to decide what, if anything, should be done to reduce exposures, was adopted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1976 its announcement of guidelines for assessing cancer risk (EPA 1976, Albert et al. 1977). This approach was later endorsed by committees of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) as the most appropriate process for informed public policy decisions to protect public health from exposure to toxic chemicals (NAS 1982, 1983). Other United States interagency committees reviewed the basis for cancer risk assessment and published background documents that are largely consistent with the earlier and much briefer statement of risk assessment guidance published by EPA in 1976 (IRLG 1979, OSTP 1984). EPA has published updates of its original cancer risk assessment guidelines and guidelines for other health effects that take into account its decade of experience in assessing cancer risks for hundreds of chemicals (EPA 1984a,b,c,d, 1985a, 1986a,b,c,d,e).