^®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week

NTP Views Report on Carcinogens as Highly Influential Under OMB Peer Review Guidelines
National Toxicology Program officials told their Board of Scientific Counselors that they consider the Report on Carcinogens to be "highly influential scientific information" for purposes of OMB's government-wide peer review guidelines.

The RoC is published biennially. Each edition of the RoC contains human cancer reviews and classifications for several different substances. Based on their statements to the Board of Scientific Counselors, each edition of the RoC will be considered "highly influential" for purposes of OMB peer review guidelines by the NTP. No distinctions will be made for individual substances within the overall document.

The NTP officers and staff propose applying this "highly influential" peer review classification beginning with the 12th edition of the RoC.

Under the OMB peer review guidelines, disseminated scientific information classified as "highly influential" is subject to more rigorous peer review requirements than other information. These peer review requirements must be met before dissemination.

The NTP officers and staff made these statements at a Board of Scientific Counselors meeting on August 18, 2005, at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. One agenda item at the meeting was possible methods of complying with the OMB peer review guidelines for all NTP information disseminations that are subject to them. No final compliance decisions were made at the meeting.

CRE agrees with the NTP's assessment that the entire RoC should be classified as "highly influential" for purpose of peer review. We encourage NTP to implement this classification beginning with the 12th RoC.