Trying to Get Smart; Progress in Safety Assessment

ABSTRACT The extensive requirements for safety testing of pesticides are intended to reassure us that these compounds do not represent health or environmental hazards. There is a danger that as the complexity of requirements increases so this original objective may be lost sight of and we may end up doing unnecessary or ineffectual tests simply because they are what we have always done. How do we avoid this trap? Newer scientific information will inform us and must find its way into the regulatory process as soon as is practicable; there is a clear implication that other processes must be abandoned.