Value of information

Risk Sciences International (RSI) investigators Greg Paoli, Shintaro Hagiwara and Daniel Krewski collaborated with investigators from the US Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE) on the development of an analytical framework to evaluate alternative chemical toxicity testing strategies, meeting a need identified by the US National Research Council in its 2009 report on Science and Decision: Advancing Risk Assessment.

This work is presented in two research papers published in Risk Analysis, led by Paul Price at CCTE and Shintaro Hagiwara at RSI. Greg Paoli, a member of the Science and Decisions Committee, was pleased to see this methodological advance come to fruition.

These contributions suggest that while rapid alternative test methods may be subject to greater uncertainty than traditional more expensive animal tests of longer duration, having sufficient information to support risk decision making in a timely manner can result in a lower total social cost by avoiding pubic health impacts that can accrue when decisions are delayed pending the results of toxicity tests of longer duration.