An official website of the United States government.

This is not the current EPA website. To navigate to the current EPA website, please go to www.epa.gov. This website is historical material reflecting the EPA website as it existed on January 19, 2021. This website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work. More information »

Menu

IRIS

IRIS Public Science Meeting (May 2016)

EPA hosted an IRIS public science meeting to provide an opportunity for the public to give input and participate in an open discussion regarding the IRIS Assessment Plan (IAP) that was prepared for this IRIS chemical prior to the development of the draft assessment.

This included the following chemical:

  • IRIS Toxicological Review of Hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX)

Meeting Objective

At IRIS Public Science Meetings, the IRIS Program encourages the scientific community and the public to participate in discussions on IRIS draft assessment materials. The scientific information and perspectives from the meeting would be considered as this assessment progresses.

In August 2013, EPA released the draft literature search and associated search strategy, evidence tables, and exposure response arrays for RDX to obtain input from stakeholders and the public prior to developing the draft IRIS assessment. In December 2013, EPA hosted an IRIS public science meeting to discuss those preliminary materials. The May 2016 meeting was held to discuss the public comment draft that was released for comments.

The objective of this public meeting was to obtain input from the scientific community, stakeholders, and the general public on the IRIS Toxicological Review of RDX (Public Comment Draft) prior to external peer review. This is in addition to the formal public comment period announced in a March 10, 2016 Federal Register Notice, where written comments can be submitted to the RDX docket [see Meeting Materials tab].

In October 2014, EPA’s IRIS Program announced an agreement with the National Academies’ National Research Council (NRC) to arrange for independent experts to participate in the IRIS public science meetings to provide input on the science underlying the development of IRIS assessments. The NRC will select a limited number of experts to join in the discussion of the key science topics at this meeting. Participation of these experts is meant to be supplementary and stakeholders and the public should continue to register as discussants.

Dates

The meeting was held on May 10, 2016.

Location

The meeting was held at the EPA Conference Center at 2777 South Crystal Drive, Arlington, Virginia 22202. The meeting was also available by webinar/teleconference for remote participants.

Public participation. The IRIS Program used this meeting format intended to promote public discussion which emphasizes conversational exchanges over presentations. We wanted to hear the full range of scientific perspectives during these discussions. Accordingly, we requested that no more than two individuals from the same organization register as discussants on any particular topic. We also asked that discussants limit the number of slides used, and rely on them mainly to present concepts and data via figures and tables. After the discussants each had a turn, all meeting participants were invited to join the discussion.

Disclosures for discussants and commenters. To promote transparency, it was requested that persons submitting written or oral comments or participating as discussants on key science topics disclose: (1) The nature of any financial relationships (e.g., consulting agreements, expert witness support, or research funding) they may have with any organization(s) or entities having an interest in the assessment or issues under discussion; and (2) The extent to which their comments were reviewed by an interested party prior to submission.

Disclosures for submitting study results. If results or analyses of scientific research were submitted or presented, it was requested that the following information be provided where available: (1) Identification of the funding source(s) and sponsoring organization(s) of the research; (2) The extent to which the research findings were reviewed by an interested party prior to publication or submission, and identification of any such parties; and (3) The nature of any financial relationships between investigators who conducted the research and any organization(s) or entities having an interest in the assessment or issues under discussion.

Making submitted materials available to the public. To provide a reasonable opportunity for all stakeholders to participate in a thoughtful public dialogue on the science topics, meeting participants were requested to submit presented materials to the RDX docket [see Meeting Materials tab] and to EPA_IRIS@icfi.com in advance of the May 10th public meeting. 

Top of Page