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3982040 
Technical Report 
Human health tier II assessment for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and its direct precursors 
National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme :: NICNAS 
2015 
Australian Government Department of Health 
Sydney, NW, Australia 
20 
English 
This assessment was carried out under the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme (NICNAS). This scheme has been established by the Industrial Chemicals (Notification and Assessment) Act 1989 (the Act), to aid in the protection of the Australian people and the environment by assessing the risks of industrial chemicals, providing information and making recommendations to promote their safe use.

As part of the reforms regarding Existing Chemicals, NICNAS has implemented a new framework to address the human health and environmental impacts of previously unassessed industrial chemicals listed on the Australian Inventory of Chemical Substances (AICS).

The Inventory Multi-tiered Assessment and Prioritisation (IMAP) framework was developed, with significant input from stakeholders. The framework provides a more rapid, flexible and transparent approach for the assessment of existing chemicals.

Stage One of this program, which will take four years, started 1 July 2012 and is examining 3000 chemicals meeting characteristics identified by stakeholders as needing priority assessment. This includes chemicals for which NICNAS already holds exposure information, chemicals identified as a concern or for which regulatory action has been taken overseas, and chemicals detected in international studies analysing chemicals present in babies’ umbilical cord blood.

The IMAP framework is a science and risk-based model designed to align the assessment effort with the human health and environmental impacts of chemicals. It has three tiers of assessment, with the assessment effort increasing with each tier. The Tier I assessment is a high throughput approach using tabulated electronic data. The Tier II assessment is an evaluation of risk on a substance-by-substance or chemical category-by-category basis. Tier III assessments are conducted to address specific concerns that could not be resolved during the Tier II assessment.

NICNAS assessments are carried out by staff employed by the Australian Government Department of Health and the Australian Government Department of the Environment. The human health and environment risk assessments are being conducted and published separately, using information available at the time, and may be undertaken at different tiers.

This chemical/group of chemicals is/are being assessed at Tier II because the Tier I assessment indicated that it needed further investigation.