Since its inception 25 years ago, EPA [the US Environmental Protection Agency] has applied the same logic to hundreds of other substances, extrapolating from high levels in animal studies to arrive at acceptable levels for humans. But that approach, say scientists both inside and outside the federal government, may no longer be the best way to safeguard public health...EPA's new emphasis on molecular data is based on a growing body of evidence that extrapolations from megadoses can provide a misleading picture of the effects of low-level exposure. Chloroform is a good example. EPA's current strict standards were derived from a study in which mice developed liver tumors after exposure to massive daily doses of chloroform pumped into their stomachs over several months. However, those findings may not be relevant to human exposures, according to a paper picked by the Society of Toxicology as the best published last year in its journal.

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