RSI recently conducted an in-house training session in systematic review for its staff. The session featured a keynote presentation by Dr. Katya Tsaioun from Johns Hopkins University, who provided an overview of best practices in systematic review.  The training included two systemic applications of systematic review, and current software in systematic review was studied. The…

Each year the Society of Toxicology, Biological Modeling Specialty Section (BMSS) does a literature search to identify outstanding modeling papers in the field of toxicology. The PubMed search identified well over 300 papers for drugs and chemicals.  The list was reduced to approximately 60-70 in the general field of toxicology, and again reduced to 30+…

This issue of QuarterWatch analyzes MedWatch Reports from the third quarter of 2015. This issue identifies major differences in reports of cancer associated with drugs for psoriasis, a common skin disorder affecting an estimated 7.5 million people. While corticosteroid and other topical drugs are sufficient for many cases, potent immunosuppressant drugs are used in increasing…

Risk Sciences International has launched The Global Risk Census. The goal of the Census is to provide insights into important risks that need to be confronted now and in the future. These insights will be of great value to decision-makers, policy-makers and indeed to all stakeholders affected by a myriad of local, regional or global…

CPS has recently announced 13 new research awards totaling a little over $2.6 million. The awards are for research projects directed at answering critical questions in specific areas of food safety practices. Among this year’s topics: storage, sanitation, agricultural water, co-management and risk-based field sampling. Projects will begin in January 2019. RSI’s Emma Hartnett is…

Risk Sciences International will host Abdallah Alami as an intern in statistics with support from the Mitacs Accelerate program. This unique university-industry program supports interns at Canadian companies while completing graduate their training at Canadian universities.    Mr. Alami will be completing his MSc in statistics at Carleton University under the supervision of Professor Patrick Farrell and…

Dr. Donald Mattison, RSI’s Senior Vice-President and Chief Medical Officer, has accepted an appointment as a University of South Carolina Health Sciences Distinguished Professor in the in the Arnold School of Public Health (ASPH).  The appointment noted that Dr. Mattison’s broad and deep career experience as a researcher and educator is impressive and valuable to USC.  Dr Mattison’s academic…

Working with international thought leaders in risk science, Risk Sciences International investigators contributed to the development of the evidenced-based risk assessment framework shown in the figure below.  The framework evolved from a workshop held at the University of Ottawa in December 2018, jointly organized by the McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of…

Problem Formulation in Food Safety Assessments conducted by the European Food Safety Authority RSI investigators recently provided advise to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on the problem formulation step in the EFSA scientific assessment approach shown in the figure below.  The recommended problem formulation framework is designed to translate the mandate into well-formulated assessment questions and sub-questions, and select the…

RSI was contracted by CBS to assist the Alliance of Blood Operators in the development of a blood-safety oriented risk-based decision-making framework. Why use this framework?  Streamline the process of assessing blood safety risk and make informed blood safety decisions. To access the Framework on the Alliance of Blood Operators site users will need to…