Toxicological Evaluations 9

As part of its "Programme for the prevention of health hazards caused by industrial substances", the Berufsgenossenschaft der chemischen Industrie (BG Chemie, Employment Accident Insurance Fund of the Chemical Industry) began in 1977 to investigate the toxicity of those chemicals which are widely used, have many different applications and are suspected of being dangerous to health, in particular of hav ing long-term effects. The investigations consist of a literature search and - depending on the results - commissions of experimental stud ies. It is hoped by means of this testing to close gaps in our knowledge and to increase the scientific validity of the required risk assessments. The results of the toxicological investigations carried out by BG Chemie, and the resulting substance assessments have been pub lished in German since 1987 in the form of 169 "Toxikologische Bewertungen" ("Toxicological Evaluations") up to now. In order to make this useful information internationally available, BG Chemie began in October 1990 to publish them as a book series in English, of which the ninth volume (containing 14 individual eval uations) is presented here. Therefore for 124 existing chemicals, "Toxicological Evaluations" are available in English at the moment, a further 41 are in preparation and will be published soon.