Priority Substances List Assessment Report for Phenol

Appendix A Search Strategies Employed for Identification of Relevant Data

Environmental assessment

Data relevant to the assessment of whether phenol is "toxic" to the environment under CEPA were identified from existing review documents and searches of commercial and government databases conducted between January and April 1996. The major databases that were searched include the following: Aqualine (1985-1996), ASFA (Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts; 1990-1996), BIOSIS (Biosciences Information Services; 1990-1996), CAB (Commonwealth Agriculture Bureaux; 1990-1996), CESARS (Chemical Evaluation Search and Retrieval System, Ontario Ministry of the Environment and Michigan Department of Natural Resources; 1996), CHRIS (Chemical Hazard Release Information System; 1996), Current Contents (Institute for Scientific Information; 1990-1996), ELIAS (Environmental Library Integrated Automated System, Environment Canada library; January 1996), Enviroline (R.R. Bowker Publishing Co.; 1990-1996), Environmental Abstracts (1975 -February 1996), Environmental Bibliography (Environmental Studies Institute, International Academy at Santa Barbara; 1990-1996), GEOREF (Geo Reference Information System, American Geological Institute; 1990-1996), HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank, U.S. National Library of Medicine; 1996), IRPTC (International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals; April 1996), Life Sciences (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts; 1990-1996), NPRI (National Pollutant Release Inventory; 1995), NTIS (National Technical Information Service, U.S. Department of Commerce; 1990-1996), Pollution Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, U.S. National Library of Medicine; 1990-1996), POLTOX (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, U.S. National Library of Medicine; 1990-1995), RTECS (Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances, U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; 1996), Toxline (U.S. National Library of Medicine; 1990-1996), TRI93 (Toxic Chemical Release Inventory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Toxic Substances; 1993), USEPA-ASTER (Assessment Tools for the Evaluation of Risk, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; up to December 21, 1994), WASTEINFO (Waste Management Information Bureau of the American Energy Agency; 1973 -September 1995), Water Resources Abstracts (U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior; 1990-1996). Additional data sources are listed in Appendix F of the environmental supporting documentation (Environment Canada, 1998a). A survey of Canadian industry was carried out under authority of Section 16 of CEPA (Environment Canada, 1997d). Companies were required to provide information on uses, releases, environmental concentrations, effects or other data that were available to them for phenol if they met the trigger quantity of 500 kg of phenol per year. Additional relevant information was obtained on a voluntary basis from industry, including several steel and metal products mills. Reveal Alert was used to maintain an ongoing record of the current scientific literature pertaining to the potential environmental effects of phenol. Data obtained after May 31, 1998, were not considered in this assessment unless they were critical data received during the 60-day public review of the report (May 1 to June 29, 1999).

Health assessment

Evaluations of other agencies, such as the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS, 1994a), the Commission of the European Communities (Hansen, 1993) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, 1989), were consulted to identify relevant data.

Additional relevant data were identified through searches, conducted in January 1994, on the following databases: CCRIS (Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System, U.S. National Cancer Institute), DART (Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology, U.S. National Library of Medicine), EMIC (Environmental Mutagen Information Center database, Oak Ridge National Laboratory) and EMICBACK (backfile of EMIC), ETICBACK (backfile of Environmental Teratology Information Center database, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences), GENE-TOX (Genetic Toxicology, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank, U.S. National Library of Medicine), IRIS (Integrated Risk Information System, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), RTECS (Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances, U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). Phenol's name, registry number and major synonyms were searched in the Toxline database (U.S. National Library of Medicine; 1988 to present). In view of the relatively limited database available for assessment of the toxicity of phenol, additional attempts were made to acquire copies of unpublished studies through contact with representatives of industry and international agencies and library searches of authors' names to identify subsequently published work. In response to these requests, a copy of the Dow Chemical Company (1944) unpublished manuscript was kindly provided by the Chemical Manufacturers Association. The Chemical Manufacturers Association also provided preliminary reports of ongoing industry-sponsored inhalation and reproductive toxicology studies.

To identify data relevant to the estimation of exposure of the general population to phenol, literature searches were conducted in January 1994 using the strategy of searching by the name and major synonyms in the following databases: AQUAREF (Inland Waters Directorate, Environment Canada), CISTIMON (Canadian Institute for Scientific and Technical Information list of monographs, National Research Council of Canada), ELIAS (Environmental Library Integrated Automated System, Environment Canada library), EMBASE (on-line version of Excerpta Medica), Enviroline (R.R. Bowker Publishing Co.), Environmental Bibliography (Environmental Studies Institute, International Academy at Santa Barbara), Medline (U.S. National Library of Medicine), Microlog (Canadian Research Index, Government Publications, Micromedia Ltd.), Pollution Abstracts (Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, U.S. National Library of Medicine). Numerous provincial and federal government officials and representatives of various industrial sectors were contacted between February and August 1996 for data relevant to exposure and/or effects. Only data acquired prior to September 1997 were considered in the determination of whether phenol is "toxic" to human health.