title: The new tapestry of risk assessment.
abstract: Neurotoxicology is entering a new phase in how it views and practices risk assessment. Perhaps more than any of the other disciplines that comprise the science of toxicology, it has been compelled to consider a daunting array of factors other than those directly coupled to chemical and dose, and the age and sex of the subject population. In epidemiological investigations, researchers are increasingly cognizant of the problems introduced by allegedly controlling for variables classified as confounders or covariates. In essence, they reason, the consequence is blurring or even concealing interactions of exposure with modifiers such as the individual's social ecology. Other researchers question the traditional practice of relying on values such as NOAELs when they are abstracted from a biological entity that in reality represents a multiplicity of intertwined systems. Although neurotoxicologists have come to recognize the complexities of assessing risk in all its dimensions, they still face the challenge of communicating this view to the health professions at large.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Medicine and Environmental Health Sciences Center, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, NY 14642, USA. bernard_weiss@urmc.rochester.edu
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cory-Slechta
authors.forename: Steven G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Gilbert
authors.forename: Donna
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mergler
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: M Christopher
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Newland
authors.forename: Deborah
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rice
authors.forename: Ted
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schettler
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*; D014116:Toxicology / Q000379:methods / Q000639:trends*