EPA Partners With Unilever To Assess Risks Of Chemicals Used In Consumer Goods

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Unilever are working together to find a way to test the safety of thousands of chemicals used in consumer goods without using animals. According to the EPA, the new testing methods represent a “paradigm shift” in chemical safety testing and risk assessment because they will be faster, safer and “more relevant to humans.” The EPA will provide data gathered from automated chemical screening technologies. Unilever will estimate exposures from these chemicals based on its experiences using chemicals in consumer products. The combined information will be used to create a risk assessment. An EPA spokesman said the research will lead to better ways to “evaluate the potential human health effects of new ingredients and chemicals we currently know little about.”