Toxicology and environmental digital resources from and for citizen groups

Since the late 1970s, grass-roots community groups, consumer advocates, and national (and international) environmental organizations have made two main contributions to public discussions, and public policies, affecting the production, use, and disposal of toxic materials. With the advent of e-mail, listservs, and the World Wide Web, such groups formed global "early warning" networks that have (1) alerted people to many uses of toxic materials and their effects on wildlife and humans, and (2) advocated new prevention-based public policies, including: assessment of available alternatives as a means of supplementing risk assessments; clean production as a way of avoiding the use of toxic materials; the substitution principle as a way of systematically reducing the use of toxic materials as time passes; the precautionary principle as a policy response to uncertainties in toxicological science; and zero discharge of persistent or bioaccumulative substances. We describe and discuss numerous important digital resources (web sites, discussion lists, and databases) created and maintained by and for citizen groups.