Publications : 2026

Wikoff D, Brown L. Development of an integrated human and environmental health safety assessment framework: Initial findings and progress from a consortium effort. Abstract 1050, Society of Toxicology 65th Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, March 2026.

Abstract

OPEN ACCESS

Given the recent push to more holistic and integrated safety assessments, a team has been formed by the International Collaboration on Cosmetic Safety with the goal of developing a non-animal-based decision framework to assess both human and environmental safety in an integrated manner. Given the inherent multi-disciplinary nature of proposing a NAM-based framework which includes both human and ecological health, a diverse working group of cosmetics and personal care companies with varying areas of expertise collaborated to develop a process by which a safety assessor can consider when data from one field of discipline (e.g., human health toxicology) may inform another (e.g., ecotoxicology) or vice versa. This presentation will cover both the approach used to develop the draft framework and present the framework as it stands in March of 2026. A landscape review of existing frameworks for integrated or NAM-based safety assessments was performed to identify existing frameworks for human and/or environmental health safety assessments, areas of overlap between the two, and data gaps that could be addressed in the development of the integrated framework presented herein. In addition, the talk will cover case studies that are being used to “stress test” the framework to identify both the robustness of available tools and the gaps in our ability to ensure safety of relevant ingredients without the use of animal tests. Further, the talk will discuss available findings as it pertains to NAMs that are available to address relevant biological targets including ones of common interest between human health and environment, along with tools that can be used to evaluate to feasibility of cross-species extrapolation based on knowledge of a compound mechanism of action. These key considerations to integrate human and environmental health include addressing relevance of outcomes in one species (e.g., humans) to other species of interest (e.g., fish, invertebrates), using NAMs to understand metabolic pathways, protein/chemical interactions, and gene similarity. The talk will conclude with planned next steps of the working group in the process of finalizing the framework.