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The nonprofit Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration (EBTC) comprises a group of scientists and experts with ties to governmental agencies, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, and academia that have banded together to promote the use of what are known as “evidence-based approaches” in toxicology. The emerging discipline of evidence-based toxicology (EBT) is a process for transparently, consistently, and objectively assessing available scientific evidence in order to answer questions in toxicology, the study of the adverse effects of chemical, physical, or biological agents on living organisms and the ecosystem, including the prevention and amelioration of such adverse effects.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.toxicology.org/AI/PUB/si05/Si05_Define.asp )〕 EBT has the potential to address concerns in the toxicological community about the limitations of current approaches to assessing the state of the science.〔 These include concerns related to transparency in decision making, synthesis of different types of evidence, and the assessment of bias and credibility. The evidence-based methods and approaches now being proposed for toxicology are widely used in medicine, which is the basis for their nomenclature. The need to improve how the performance of toxicological test methods is assessed was the main impetus for translating these tools to toxicology. The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) concurs that new means of assessment are needed to keep pace with recent advances in the development of toxicological test methods. These new test methods capitalize on the recent advances in biochemistry and molecular biology that have enhanced scientists’ understanding of the nature and mechanisms underlying how chemicals cause adverse effects, and the tests have the potential to be much quicker and less expensive than the tests traditionally used to evaluate toxicity.〔 == Goals and benefits == The EBTC’s overall goals are to improve toxicological decision-making, facilitate the modernization of the toxicological toolbox, and reinvigorate the safety sciences.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.ebtox.com/about-us/ )〕 The group is promoting “the use of evidence-based approaches to strengthen decision-making in safety sciences… guided by themes of transparency, objectivity, and consistency.”〔 The organization’s members envision that as these efforts succeed, all interested parties—including stakeholders in government, industry, academia, the nonprofit sector, and the general public – will have greater confidence and trust in the process by which scientific evidence is assessed when addressing questions related to the safety of chemicals to human health and the environment.〔 All individuals affiliated with the organization are volunteers, except those serving in the organisation’s secretariat, which is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT). The EBTC’s members stress that evidence has always been used in toxicology. The evidence-based approach that the collaboration is championing have been used in medicine for decades. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a widely respected discipline and it has strengthened the scientific foundation of decision-making in clinical medicine by providing a structured way of assessing the evidence bearing on healthcare questions.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.ebtox.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/EBTC-EUROTOX-poster-3-for-kick-off1.pdf )〕 The EBTC’s name acknowledges both EBM and the Cochrane Collaboration, an international network of more than 31,000 dedicated people from over 100 countries and a well-known proponent of evidence-based health care (EBHC). The EBTC foresees that the evidence-based approach will provide similar benefits to toxicology, especially at a time when remarkable advances in biochemistry and molecular biology are enhancing scientists’ ability to understand the nature and mechanisms of the adverse effects that can be caused by chemicals.〔 Eventually, the EBTC will evolve into an umbrella organization facilitating the application of evidence-based approaches to toxicology. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Evidence-based Toxicology Collaboration」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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