The United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, (ATSDR) is an agency for the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that
is directed by a congressional mandate to perform specific functions concerning the effect on public health of hazardous substances in the environment. These functions include public health assessments of waste
sites, health consultations concerning specific hazardous substances, health surveillance and registries, emergency response to
releases of hazardous substances, applied research in support of public health assessments, information development, and
dissemination.
ATSDR places an emphasis upon education and training concerning hazardous substances. The agency works closely with community
members and organizations to encourage public involvement in ATSDR activities, including hearings and informational meetings
which impact residents living in contaminated areas.
History
The United States Congress created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry during 1980 in order to implement the health-related sections of laws that protect the
public from hazardous wastes and environmental spills of hazardous substances. The Comprehensive Environmental Response,
Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), commonly known as the "Superfund" Act, provided the Congressional mandate to remove or clean up abandoned and inactive hazardous
waste sites and to provide federal assistance in toxic emergencies. As the lead Agency within the Public Health Service for
implementing the health-related provisions of CERCLA, ATSDR is charged under the Superfund Act to assess the presence and nature
of health hazards at specific Superfund sites, as well as to help prevent or reduce further exposure and the illnesses that
result from such exposures. Moreover, the agency's responsibility is to expand the knowledge base about health effects from
exposure to hazardous substances.
Amendments were made to the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act of 1976 (RCRA), during 1984: These amendments provide for the management of legitimate hazardous waste storage or
destruction facilities and authorize ATSDR to conduct public health assessments at these sites when the agency is requested to do
so by the United States Environmental Protection Agency,
(EPA), states, or individuals. ATSDR is also authorized to assist EPA in determining which substances should be regulated and the
levels at which substances may pose a threat to human health.
With the passage of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA), ATSDR received additional
responsibilities in environmental public health. This act broadened ATSDR's responsibilities in the areas of public health
assessments, establishment and maintenance of toxicologic databases, dissemination of information, and medical education.
National Priority List
The Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry works closely with state and local legislators as well as the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Toxic
Substances Control (DTSC), United States Army Corps of
Engineers, United States Department of Labor (DOL),
United States Air Force, NASA, the
United States Department of Justice (DOJ), and Department of Homeland Security, among other agencies in addition to
individuals, medical providers, citizens groups and organizations.
ATSDR and the EPA are required to prepare a prioritized list of substances that are most commonly found at facilities on the
National Priorities List, (NPL), and which are determined to pose the most
significant potential threat to human health due to their known or suspected toxicity and potential for human exposure at these
NPL sites. CERCLA also requires this list to be revised each two years in order to reflect additional information on hazardous
substances. The CERCLA priority list is revised and published with a yearly informal review and revision. Each substance on the
CERCLA Priority List of Hazardous Substances is a candidate to become the subject of a toxicological profile prepared by ATSDR
and subsequently a candidate for the identification of priority data needs.
The ATSDR, EPA, and CERCLA National Priority
List is based on an algorithm that utilizes the following three components: frequency of occurrence at NPL sites, toxicity,
and potential for human exposure to the substances found at NPL sites. This algorithm utilizes data from ATSDR's HazDat database,
which contains information from ATSDR's public health assessments and health consultations. It should be noted that this priority
list is not a list of "most toxic" substances, but rather a prioritization of substances based on a combination of their
frequency, toxicity, and potential for human exposure at NPL sites; thus, it is possible for substances with low toxicity but
high NPL frequency of occurrence and exposure to be on this priority list. The objective of this priority list is to rank
substances across all NPL hazardous waste sites in order to provide guidance in selecting which substances will be the subject of
toxicological profiles prepared by ATSDR which are developed from a priority list of 275 substances.
ATSDR also prepares toxicological profiles for the Department of
Defense (DOD), and the Department of Energy (DOE), on
substances related to federal sites.
See also
External links
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