Release of Chemical Assessments
Action to improve the availability of chemical safety information for industry, government and the community is well underway with the publication of chemical safety information on 137 industrial chemicals by the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS).
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11 December 2012
Action to improve the availability of chemical safety information for industry, government and the community is well underway with the publication of chemical safety information on 137 industrial chemicals by the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS), the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing, Catherine King, announced today.
"NICNAS was established by the Australian Government to promote the safe use of chemicals and in July this year I decided on a framework to improve the public availability of chemical safety information," Ms King said.
"I am pleased to announce that NICNAS has assessed the first round of chemicals using its new Inventory Multi-tiered Assessment and Prioritisation (IMAP) framework, which has been specifically designed to accelerate the assessment of industrial chemicals that are already available for use in Australia, but which have not been scientifically assessed for their human health and environmental impacts."
Ms King said the IMAP framework is being implemented in stages. The first stage will run over four years and see the assessment of about 3,000 chemicals on Australia’s national inventory that have been identified as priorities for assessment.
They are chemicals for which NICNAS already holds information about their quantity or use in Australia, chemicals identified as a concern or for which regulatory action has been taken overseas, and chemicals reported in international studies analysing the blood in babies’ umbilical cords. 600 of these chemicals are planned for assessment this financial year.
“The release for public comment of the reports on the first 137 chemicals assessed under the new IMAP framework is a major milestone in improving the safe use of chemicals in Australia," Ms King said.
Access to the new IMAP information can be found at the NICNAS website.
For more information, please contact the Parliamentary Secretary's Office on (02) 6277 4230
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