Introduction

Human Health Toxicology Values (HHTV) quantify the relationship between exposure to a chemical substance and effects on health. HHTVs are therefore key parameters for making calculations and assessing health risks. Assessments are conducted before setting up a classified facility or before rehabilitating a disused industrial site for urban development (e.g. as a school), and health authorities are called on to give an expert opinion. The HHTVs of the applicant wishing to develop a site are carefully checked by the DDASS local public health authority (or by the CIRE regional epidemiology bureau); this procedure can be complex and time-consuming as HHTVs are produced by a number of different bodies. Internet search engines (e.g. ITER and INERIS) can help, but there is only a small number of substances and online references for HHTVs. A project group set up with the DDASS regional health agency for the north of France [Nord] and two CIRE offices (north of France and Greater Paris) developed an efficient search engine with free Internet access.

Purpose

Furetox is designed to extend the scope of searches on the Web and cut the time needed. For a given chemical substance, Furetox can:

• provide swift access to the HHTVs (currently only for chronic exposure) and provide easy access to background documents with details on how the values were established.

• provide swift access to carcinogenicity classifications.

Furetox welcomes critical feedback from users and provides references (“fact sheets” for each data base) on the methodology used to calculate the values (at present, in French only)

Results Available

After first specifying the compound, there are three steps to follow:

• the option proposed is to make a search using the name of the compound or the CAS registry number.

The compound identification module responds to the query, either with the specific compound or a list of possible compounds.
The user can then retrieve the relevant data when available from the data bases referenced. This is done in three steps.

1  Selecting a specific compound

The user can initiate the search by selecting the target compound or by adding information if too many compounds are listed in response to the query (maximum 100).

2  Selecting data to search

Step 2 has 3 separate search modules:

• Check HHTV, initiating a search on relevant data bases providing direct access to HHTVs listed

• Assess HHTV, initiating a search on all databases referenced, with hyperlink access to databases including studies on the compound selected, showing how the values were calculated, to help make an informed choice.

• Report carcinogenicity, giving access to carcinogenicity rankings for the compound as classified by different national and international agencies.

3  Results

Format:

• For the “Check HHTV” module : summary charts, for exposure and effects, giving HHTV values and including hyperlinks to databases listing these values.

• For the “Assess HHTV” module, tables providing links leading to research studies of the compound(s), covering exposure and effects, plus, whenever possible, links to the document or precise paragraph with a detailed report on the procedure used to establish the HHTV.

• For the Report carcinogenicity module : a table showing the carcinogenicity group in which the compound was ranked by the different agencies, and including hyperlinks to their sites.

4  Saving Results

All the different tables of results can be printed or a full copy saved in pdf format by clicking on the “print” or “save copy” icon.