§285l–3 Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods

Summary

The Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences must make ICCVAM a permanent interagency committee under the National Toxicology Program’s center for evaluating alternative toxicology methods. ICCVAM is the group that evaluates new or alternative test methods. SAC is a Scientific Advisory Committee that provides outside expert advice. ICCVAM’s main goals are to speed and improve federal review of test methods, stop duplicate work and share experience across agencies, bring in outside scientific expertise, make sure new methods are validated for agency needs, and, when possible, reduce, refine, or replace animal testing. ICCVAM is made up of the heads (or designees) of many federal agencies, including EPA, FDA, NIH, NIOSH, OSHA, the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Transportation, and others that use or regulate animal tests. The Director must also set up the SAC with voting members from specified industries, a national animal protection organization, and representatives from academia, state government, international regulators, or companies that develop test methods; agency heads serve as nonvoting members. ICCVAM must review and evaluate test methods (including batteries of tests), help harmonize test protocols across agencies and internationally, give guidance on validation and acceptance of methods, send test recommendations to appropriate agencies through the HHS Secretary, consider public petitions that propose methods with scientific evidence, publish final recommendations and agency responses, and report progress to the public. The first public report was due within 12 months after December 19, 2000, and reports are required every two years after that.