Risk assessment and management models in development

Traditionally toxicology was the science of poisons and antidotes. Because of societal and historical reasons, there developed a need to determine public hazard. This need has resulted in regulatory toxicology, the science of how to evaluate public health and environmental safety by evaluating the possibility of hazard or injury from the use of a substance to humans under practical conditions of use and exposure. The intense investigation, especially in this century, made to address these concerns has led to a significant broadening of the knowledge base in toxicology and to a new capacity to alter toxicity. How the risk of a toxic endpoint is assessed and the steps taken to assure safety are part of a process termed risk management. Managing risks can affect society, public health, employment, and international economics. It therefore includes, in addition to information on toxicity, many other factors such as values, politics, and economics. In order to provide a description of how risks are managed in a society such as the United States, some background about why certain risks are of concern is given, and how this concern is manifest and the methods of managing risk with an emphasis on regulatory toxicology are discussed.