WASHINGTON — Registration is now open for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research Program webinar, “Model for Investigating the Human Health Risks of Multi-route Exposure to Bromodichloromethane.”
The Safe and Sustainable Water Resources Research Program is a monthly webinar series that focuses on EPA water research, according to a press release.
This month’s webinar will take place Wednesday, April 29, from 12 to 1 p.m. EDT, stated the release.
“During the drinking water treatment process chemicals are often used for disinfection,” informed the release. “Sometimes these chemicals react with naturally occurring materials in the water leading to the formation of disinfection byproducts (DBP), some of which are volatile and are regulated by [EPA]. Bromodichloromethane (BDCM) is one of the regulated DBPs that can form and end up at consumers’ taps.”
Humans may be exposed through inhalation, ingestion and absorption through the skin when BDCM is present in drinking water, continued the release, and epidemiology studies in humans have reported an increased risk for some cancers in people exposed to DBPs in water for several years.
Little is known about the internal BDCM doses a person can receive from various exposure routes, reported the release, and to help determine the risks of exposure, EPA researcher developed and applied a Human Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic (PBPK) Model to help predict the amount of exposure a person has had to BDCM from drinking water and various water uses.
For the webinar, Elaina M. Kenyon, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., will discuss the implications of PBPK model predictions of BDCM’s internal dose after exposure at multiple routes, and Rex Pegram, Ph.D., will highlight future directions for this research, noted the release.
Read the entire release here.