Concluding remarks: symposium on Genetic Susceptibility to Environmental Toxicants

The symposium on "Genetic Susceptibility to Environmental Toxicants" provided a state-of-the-art forum on the role of genetic susceptibility involving exposures to occupational, dietary, and other environmental toxicants. While much of the work focused on single gene-environmental interactions, there was a clear understanding that multiple gene polymorphisms in a metabolic pathway would prove to be essential knowledge in better assessing health risks. A clear need to couple these advances with better measures of exposure was also appreciated, along with improved methods to conduct individual risk assessment procedures. The ethics of these new paradigms was also discussed.