Health Risk Analysis

4-14

Authors: Onischenko G. G.

The Russian Federation continues to develop legislative, scientific, methodological and information bases, harmonized with international requirements and approaches, for the methodology of assessing health risks from exposure to harmful environmental factors. Health risk assessment methods, which are included in the social and environmental health monitoring system, have been validated and proven to be effective, are used in many Russian regions to justify health and environmental measures to protect public health, workers' health as well as in product safety analysis, etc. Taking into account risk parameters, we developed national environmental health standards of the concentrations of chemical substances in the environment, we justified the position of the Russian Federation on the content of residual harmful impurities in food, we justified ambient air quality monitoring programs during the Universiade in Kazan and the Olympic Games in Sochi. The country is developing methodical and laboratory basis for social and environment health monitoring as a foundation for exposure assessment; new approaches to the determination and mathematical modeling of "dose-effect" relationships, to risk classifications, including those used in exposure to factors of various origin, and to the application of risk assessment results in management decision making in the field of ensuring health and epidemiological well-being, are being validated.

24-29

Authors: Dobrokhotskiy O.N., Dyatlov A.I.

Issues of biological safety are of particular relevance and are a priority in ensuring the national security of the Russian Federation. In this work, we outline the ways of developing a methodical approach to bio-risk management when working with pathogenic biological agents (PBA) in order to minimize the risk of intra-laboratory infection. We show that the development and implementation of the methodology for bio-risk management when working with PBA will be the basis for developing and making management decisions which increase the effec- tiveness of the current biological safety system.

36-40

Authors: Popov M.S., Popova A.Yu.

The performed analysis of the rules of the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and their application by the Dispute Settlement Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Appellate Body shows that a WTO member country may ban the import of goods if this product has been proven to be hazardous or there are reasonable grounds to assume that the product is hazardous. The requirement to perform risk assessment and the necessity to obtain "significant scientific evidence" are crucial to maintain the balance between the interests of developing international trade and that of human life and health protection. Provided that the import is banned or substantially restricted on a non-discriminatory basis, the importing country has no reasons to fear any significant effects from the ban. Furthermore, even if the ban is later found to be groundless, the importing country has sufficient time to cancel the ban in the absence of any sanctions.

52-56

Authors: Erastova N.V., Meltser A.V.

The high quality of drinking water is the result of a complex solution of multiple issues. The major issues are the development and implementation of state-of-the-art water treatment technologies, the use of effective mechanisms for laboratory monitoring, social and environmental health monitoring, the application of an integral approach to drinking water quality assessment and making hygienically justified decisions in the fields of water supply and disposal.

65-72

Authors: Zaitseva N.V., Zemlyanova M.A., Zvezdin V.N., Sayenko Ye.V.

An experimental study of the aqueous suspension of nano-dispersed silicon dioxide, which had been synthesized using liquid-crystal templating, by a single intra-gastric administration resulted in assigning the tested product to class of hazard 3 according to LD50. We identified a complex of morphological changes in the lowest tested dose of 500 mg/kg which manifested through pronounced changes in the circulatory system – a significant vasodilation and plethora of large blood vessels of the liver, kidneys and the thymus. We also observed the activation of proliferative processes in the lymphatic and macrophage system, the development of degenerative processes in the liver, the kidneys, the red pulp of the spleen and the lungs. No death of the animals was observed when administering the micro-dispersed analog of the compound intra-gastrically (class of hazard 4). When administering 500 mg/kg, we observed a complex of morphological changes – moderate vascular changes in the kidneys, the heart, the brain, and the liver, insignificant proliferative changes in the liver, a proliferative reaction in the lymphoid tissue, lymphocytic infiltration in the tissues of the oesophagus, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys and the large intestine.