e., not specific, and should therefore not be considered endocrine disruptive. Others felt strongly that an effect should not be considered irrelevant purely on the basis of it being secondary and argued that the central issue of endocrine disruption is mechanism, i.e., binding to a receptor, and not order of effect. This discussion could not be resolved and ‘specificity’ was not included in the proposed decision tree for identifying endocrine disruptive substances. Another controversial discussion concerned potential low dose effects. Here some participants felt strongly that robust evidence, including reproducibility of effects, was lacking. GSK1210151A Others pointed out that

routinely testing more dose levels would increase the number of animals used in studies when there are no concrete decisions yet on which endpoints

selleck to test or which doses to test them at and thus no uniformity or reproducibility is possible. Still others felt that potentially important endocrine effects might be missed if current testing strategies continue unchanged and that there is enough preliminary evidence of low dose and non-linear dose responses that we must not ignore this issue. This discussion was resolved with the group suggesting that the low dose issue move forward with further research, critical literature reviews and further workshops. The presentation summed up that at the BfR meeting, it was strongly agreed that the criteria laid down in the interim regulation, as stated in the Introduction, page 1, are not sufficient and that

specific scientific criteria should be developed as soon as possible. To achieve this, it was agreed by the meeting participants that further steps, including these research to gather missing data, meetings with the public, regulators and other stakeholders to discuss the latest findings, publication of research and regulatory consequences and further workshops to refine testing guidelines and study designs should all continue. Pesticide Residues: Factors Determining Potential Endocrine Toxicity. Dr. Cliff Elcombe*, Biomedical Research Institute, University of Dundee and CXR Biosciences, Scotland. This presentation covered which pesticides are found on common fruits and vegetables and showed how the standard exposure–dose–response paradigm for carcinogens and toxicants can be applied to endocrine active pesticides as well. The incidence of pesticide residues in produce shows that, while most produce does contain pesticide residues, and most contains residues of multiple pesticides, the amount of these residues rarely exceeds the Maximum Residue Level (MRL) set by government authorities. Recently, four of 20 different foods tested contained pesticide residues that exceeded the MRL. The standard exposure–dose–response paradigm for carcinogens and toxicants is shown in Fig. 3.