The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA)
is responsible for the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water
and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65; Health and
Safety Code Section 25249.5 et seq.). Under the Act, a chemical
may be identified as "known to the State to cause cancer"
when the state’s qualified experts find it to be clearly
shown, through scientifically valid testing according to generally
accepted principles, to cause cancer. Chemicals may also be identified
through two administrative listing processes (see the DRAFT document
Mechanisms for Listing Chemicals Under Proposition 65, May 1996
available on the OEHHA Home Page. The Carcinogen Identification
Committee of the OEHHA Science Advisory Board serves as the State’s
qualified experts for identifying carcinogens under Proposition
65. The effort described in this notice is directed at prioritizing
chemicals for carcinogenicity evaluation by the Carcinogen Identification
Committee.
OEHHA has developed a database of chemicals that have been nominated
for consideration or evaluated under Proposition 65. The database
contains entries on several hundred chemicals. Candidacy is based
on information taken from the scientific literature, lists and
databases, and on nominations from members of OEHHA’s Science
Advisory Board, other state agencies, the scientific community,
and the general public. The toxicological information on nominees
includes, for example, positive cancer data from animal and human
studies, or data from other relevant studies. Chemicals are tracked
and the database updated as new information becomes available.
As a pilot, a first round of random selection was conducted in
August 1997. The second pilot random selection will be conducted
on 100 chemicals (Table 1) which consists of the 52 chemicals
remaining from the first round of random selection and 48 additional
chemicals selected from the database using the table of random
numbers published in the California Regulatory Notice Register
(CRNR) on August 15, 1997. [Note: Fifty-five chemicals remained
from the first round of random selection conducted in August 1997.
On December 5, 1997, three of the 55 chemicals were published
in the CRNR in a Notice of Intent to List via the administrative
listing mechanism; and therefore are not included in the random
selection process. The chemicals were cytembena, methyl carbamate,
and nalidixic acid.] These 100 chemicals are those which have
completed data sheets available that provide a preview of some
of the toxicity information available on the compounds. To maximize
the use of staff resources, sixty chemicals will be selected in
this second round of random selection. Each of the sixty selected
chemicals will receive a screening toxicity evaluation as described
in the document entitled Procedure for Prioritizing Candidate
Chemicals for Consideration Under Proposition 65 by the "State’s
Qualified Experts", May 1997 (available on the OEHHA Home
Page). The screening toxicity evaluations are based on a brief
review of readily available toxicological information and are
reported in a data summary, which includes an assignment of priority
status with respect to toxicological concern. Draft data summaries
are released for scientific review and public comment. A public
workshop will be held during the public comment period to solicit
verbal, as well as written comment. Chemicals receiving a final
priority ranking of "high" toxicity concern will be
considered first by the Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC).
To facilitate the Carcinogen Identification Committee’s consideration,
hazard identification documents are prepared that summarize the
scientific evidence on the carcinogenicity of the chemical. Initially,
hazard identification documents will only be prepared on chemicals
with a priority ranking of "high".
For the pilot random selection process, OEHHA developed a series
of 500 randomly generated numbers using Microsoft Excel (shown
in Table 2 below). OEHHA will insert the 100 alphabetically arranged
chemicals shown in Table 1 into Table 2 to determine a numerical
reordering of the 100 chemicals. This will result in a "shuffling"
of the alphabetical list. The relative position where the alphabetical
listing in Table 1 is inserted into the series of random numbers
in Table 2 will be based on the sum of the first three Super Lotto
numbers drawn on Saturday, March 21, 1998. For purposes of illustration
only, if the first three numbers drawn are 3, 27, and 48, the
sum will be 78 and the first chemical in Table 1 will be assigned
the numerical value of the 78th number (336) in Table
2. The second chemical in Table 1 will have the numerical value
of the 79th number (277) in Table 2 and so on. These
100 assigned random numbers, and corresponding chemicals, will
be reordered according to increasing value. The lowest 60 numerical
values will constitute the sixty chemicals selected in this second
pilot random selection. The results of the random selection will
be posted on OEHHA’s Home Page on or before March 30, 1998.
The remaining 40 chemicals will be part of the pool from which
future selections will occur.
OEHHA is committed to an open and public process in the implementation
of Proposition 65.
For inquiries on Proposition 65, please call or write to:
Cynthia Oshita
Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
Post Office Box 4010
Sacramento, CA 95812-4010
FAX (916) 327-1097
(916) 445-6900
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