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5B b - RA: Site specific (WEP/211) Lessons from the OECD/ICCA Peer review process for the publication of ecotoxicological data. Weyers, Arnd1, Nagel, Roland1, 1 BUA-Office Ecotoxicology, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany ABSTRACT- The OECD Assessment of ICCA substances provides a framework for assessing the hazard profile and exposure potential of chemical substances. One important element of this rather formalised, stringent process is peer review of industry dossiers by independent experts. In Germany, the Advisory Committee on Existing Substances BUA (Beratergremium fuer Altstoffe) is responsible for peer review. In the peer review it turned out that in too many (scientifically interesting) publications on the ecotoxicity of substances some obviously essential facts of the experimental work are not reported. These include details on the test substance and test design (e.g. replication), test organism culture conditions, application of test substance, test medium, measurement endpoints, and finally statistical methods used to derive a result. In consequence, such papers were assigned validity (3) "invalid" or (4) "not assignable" according to the criteria of Klimisch et al. (1997) and the work done was useless for regulatory purposes. Other issues, e.g. reasons for the failure of parts of the experiment or methodological improvements, in contrast, were sometimes reported in disproportionate detail. To improve the situation we propose that authors of scientific papers refer to the OECD guidance on developing robust study summaries or to the structure of international guidelines to ensure that the experimental evidence is complete. Further, we call on the editors of scientific journals in the field of ecotoxicology to encourage reviewers to pinpoint such deficiencies in submitted publications. This would ensure that published data are usable for regulatory purposes. Key words: availability, data, review, publication |
