“Green

Address:

Green Toxicology LLC
106 Sumner Road
Brookline, MA 02445
T: 617.835.0093


Contact:

Scientific Literature Reviews and Analyses


We review and analyze scientific literature for various purposes, sometimes to meet needs of private clients, and sometimes as commentary on proposed government documents or policies. Such literature reviews have been the main product, or part of the product, of our work on numerous occasions.


Health effects of trichloroethylene

In on-going projects since the mid-1980's, we have assembled and assessed the literature concerning the environmental and toxicologic affects of trichloroethylene. We have added to the literature as well, both in the form of published (and peer-reviewed) letters to the editors of various journals, and in technical comments submitted to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in response to requests for reviews of their Draft Toxicologic Profiles for Trichloroethylene. We have also served as technical advisors to the Justice Department, assisting them in their work on trichloroethylene in toxic tort litigation, and as invited expert peer-reviewers for the ATSDR on proposals to study various impacts of trichloroethylene and related compounds on the public health. We also co-authored extensive comments, primarily regarding epidemiological literature, on the National Toxicology Program's Draft Report of Carcinogens, Background Document for Trichloroethylene (2000).

Toxicology and epidemiology of mobile source emissions

For the Federal Highway Administration, we analyzed the health-effects literature on diesel engine exhaust, benzene, and 1,3-butadiene. We evaluated the uncertainties associated with the derivations of "unit risk" factors for these chemicals, focusing on the validity of key qualitative and quantitative assumptions. In other contexts, we evaluated the toxicology of diesel engine exhaust as a form of fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and with respect to the dose-response relationships of diesel engine exhaust and lung tumors in rat bioassays. Details may be found in two publications:
Green, L.C. and Armstrong, S.R. (2003). Particulate matter in ambient air and mortality: toxicologic perspectives. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 38:326-335.
Valberg, P.A. and Crouch, E.A.C. (1999). Meta analysis of rat lung tumors from lifetime inhalation of diesel exhaust. Environmental Health Perspectives 107:693.699.

Toxicology of carbon monoxide

In several matters, we have evaluated the scientific and medical literature regarding the effects of exposures to carbon monoxide at various airborne concentrations, and as reflected in exposed individuals' levels of carboxyhemoglobin in blood-samples. These matters have involved exposures due to insufficiently vented gas-fired appliances or from fires.

Health effects of particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10)

We assessed the hypothesis that current, low-level, ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) in the U.S. cause disease and death. We found at the time that the weight of the evidence did not support this hypothesis. We provided our assessments to U.S. EPA, and published some details in two publications:
Green, L.C. and Armstrong, S.R. (2003). Particulate matter in ambient air and mortality: toxicologic perspectives. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 38:326-335.
Green, L.C., Crouch, E.A.C., Ames, M.R., and Lash, T.L. (2002). What's wrong with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter (PM2.5)? Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology 35:327-337.

Growth rates and dose-response assessment for Clostridium perfringens

As part of a collaborative effort with the USDA, we evaluated all available literature on the growth rates of the bacterium Clostridium perfringens in meat products, and on the human dose-response relationship for diarrheal illness due to this organism. We extracted numerical values from every published growth experiment, including those presented only in graphical form, and incorporated these in an analysis that evaluated the functional variation of growth rate with temperature and other variables, and also evaluated variability and uncertainty distributions. All published dose-response experiments were similarly analyzed to obtain variability and uncertainty distributions based on assumed functional forms of the dose-response relationship. All distributions were then incorporated in a Monte Carlo program (along with further results) to obtain estimates of total diarrheal illnesses expected from ready-to-eat and partially cooked meat and poultry products in the U.S.. Full details are available on the USDA risk assessment website.