Suzanne Fenton, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and Esra Mutlu, US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), kicked off the final day the 2023 SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo with their Workshop Session, “Emerging Contaminants of Concern (ECIC): Looking Back to Make Strategic Steps Forward.” The session focused on today’s emerging environmental contaminants and issues of concern, developing strategies to identify public health issues of tomorrow, and included speakers from government, nonprofit activist groups, academia, and industry. Each speaker provided an overview of their thoughts on ECICs as well as progress, action items, and ideas with which their organization has engaged.
The definition of ECICs is multifaceted. According to Dr. Mutlu, published guidelines define ECICs as contaminants that have been in the environment for a while but (1) have only recently captured attention due to health concerns and realization that data are lacking, (2) new information has emerged that heightens public health concern, or (3) emergent public health issues that have a newly identified connection to an environmental contaminant.
Dr. Fenton started her talk by relating ECICs in the context of the NIEHS Division of Translational Toxicology (DTT) mission statement and strategic areas of focus. She explained that to help decide which ECIC to study, DTT can prioritize responses to ECICs and identify rapid responses for emergency situations, such as the recent East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. Ever charismatic, Dr. Fenton likened decision challenges to “a goat in a tree” or more complex; the former would need a simple solution (e.g., a ladder) versus a more complex strategy. Dr. Fenton also emphasized the need for timely responses and suggested that early communication of data, among other things, will be a huge help. Indeed, DTT recently prioritized publications on several ECICs, including sulfolane, glyphosate, boric acid, and crumb rubber (synthetic turf). Toward the end of her talk, Dr. Fenton said, “Lots of groups have emerging contaminant groups. We want to coordinate with them” and invited members of the audience to connect with her later.
Up next was Sydney Evans, Environmental Working Group (EWG), who focused on drinking water contaminants and cumulative cancer risk and environmental justice priorities. Evans described her organization’s efforts to perfect a tap water database that focuses on community water systems. She closed her talk with next steps, emphasizing that “we want people to take this to the next level, to make this actionable.”
Dr. Fenton agreed, saying “I think one of the goals here is to make sure that water is safe for everyone in the world, and that is definitely not the case right now.”
An audience member asked, “Is bottled water safer than tap water?” Evans replied that while bottled water is helpful in disaster-type scenarios, it is “not going to be a big-picture answer.” She added that boiling water and filtering water are additional options that can reduce pathogen and toxicant contamination, respectively.
The third speaker, Shuchu Anand, is a medical doctor and epidemiologist at Stanford University. Her talk covered her research examining biomarkers of exposure to environmental health hazards, with a focus on renal outcomes, in racial and ethnic minority populations in Sri Lanka. She shared that regional nephropathies may be explained by ECICs such as agricultural pesticides, silica that is released during the burning process necessary for crop production, and water pipes used to bring well water into homes. Dr. Anand connected her research to emerging incidences of end-stage kidney disease in agricultural workers in central California, suggesting that “global enhances local” and implying that we can facilitate our approach to address domestic ECICs and their health effects by applying lessons learned from the Sri Lankan study.
An audience member who grew up in Sri Lanka asked Anand how the researchers are giving back to the community with the knowledge gained from the research. Dr. Anand replied, “We don’t have resources to provide PPE, but we do know the government was doing that, at least pre-pandemic.”
The session was rounded out by speakers from industry, including RTI International and the agrochemical industry. Leah Johnson, RTI International, delivered a more technical talk that focused on nanoplastics and their physical and chemical characterization. Nanoplastics are an ECIC, and according to one graph on Dr. Johnson’s slide, there has been an exponential increase in publications on nanoplastics over the last several years. Dr. Johnson’s talk emphasized key considerations and approaches to study potential health effects of nanoplastics, demonstrating best practices and ways to evaluate these contaminants. She closed her talk by inviting members of the audience and other speakers to collaborate using some of her methods. “I’m very excited for fruitful collaborations, so please, reach out!”
The final speaker, Carrie Fleming, Corteva Agrscience, focused her talk on “what we do in the agrochemical industry to try to ensure that we are not developing the next ECIC.” Pesticides are useful for maximizing crop yields to feed the world’s population, but pesticides need to be evaluated for potential health effects to humans. The talk underscored the need to understand health effects of new pesticides, detailing the registrability of new pesticide active ingredients with various new methods, most of which are conducted in vitro or in silico.
Fleming received several questions, one probing at Corteva’s plan to estimate exposures for new chemicals using exposure database–based on models. Fleming defended the database, explaining that it was “based on a very robust data set” that leverages known physical and chemical properties that have similarities to existing pesticides to make estimates.
Overall, the session was well attended for the final day of a conference and produced lively discussion. Almost every speaker at the session encouraged collaboration and communication, underscoring where the key to making strategic steps forward lies.
This blog reports on the Workshop Session titled “Emerging Contaminants of Concern (ECIC): Looking Back to Make Strategic Steps Forward” that was held during the 2023 SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. An on-demand recording of this session is available for meeting registrants on the SOT Online Planner and SOT Event App.
This blog was prepared by an SOT Reporter and represents the views of the author. SOT Reporters are SOT members who volunteer to write about sessions and events in which they participate during the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. SOT does not propose or endorse any position by posting this article. If you are interested in participating in the SOT Reporter program in the future, please email SOT Headquarters.
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