D10: Impact of Contaminants - Hydromod

Integrated Water Resource Management for Important Deep European Lakes and their Catchment Areas
EUROLAKES
D10: Impact of Contaminants
FP5_Contract No.: EVK1-CT1999-00004
Version: 4.0
Date: 25/07/01
File: D10-vers.4.0.doc
Page 25 of 136
6 METHODS OF DETERMINING THE ENDOCRINE EFFECT OF SUBSTANCES
6.1 BACKGROUND
For regulatory purposes toxicological tests have to be carried out according to internationally
accepted test guidelines. However, in several recent workshops and publications
it has been discussed whether the current test guidelines are suitable for identifying
endocrine disrupters:
• SETAC-Europe/OECD/EC Expert Workshop on Endocrine Modulators and Wildlife:
Assessment and Testing (EMWAT), Veldhoven, Netherlands, 10-13 April
1997;
• the OECD is at the moment finalising the Detailed Review Paper (DRP): “Appraisal
of Test Methods for Sex-Hormone Disrupting Chemicals”. The document
has been prepared by the United Kingdom as a proposed basis on which to assess
the suitability and availability of existing test methods used both by OECD
member states and the research community. This document was circulated to
the OECD National Test Guidelines Co-ordinators in April 1997 and has been
recently revised to take account of comments received. A final document has yet
to be published;
• a draft report from February 1998 of the activities of the Endocrine Disrupter
Screening Testing and Advisory Committee (EDSTAC) of the US-EPA;
• a publication in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry by [ANKLEY et al.
1998] entitled “Overview of a workshop on screening methods for detecting potential
(anti-) oestrogenic/androgenic chemicals in wildlife”.
A summary of all tests available at the moment - including the recommendations for
their enhancement with respect to endocrine disrupters - discussed in EMWAT, DRP
and EDSTAC was presented by the OECD in a background paper of the first meeting of
the OECD Endocrine Disrupter Testing and Assessment Working Group (EDTA),
March 10-11, 1998. Test guidelines for invertebrates (OECD 202), fish (OECD 203,
204, 210 and 212 and the draft 28-days juvenile growth) and birds (OECD 205 and
206) and several tests with mammals like the OECD 407 and 416 are discussed
therein. It is stated that none of the current OECD ecotoxicology test guidelines are
specifically designed to detect endocrine disrupters. The same can be argued for the
EU test guidelines as only regulatory test guidelines are available for acute tests with
fish and daphnia’s, with non-specific endpoints, including growth and mortality.
The need for revision of existing OECD test guidelines and the development of new test
guidelines specifically to address the potential adverse effects arising as a result of endocrine
disruption, has been proposed by several organisations, such as EDSTAC, and
in workshops on endocrine disrupters, such as EMWAT. Rather than discussing all ex-