Addressing the Assignment of US EPA Hazard Categories for Dermal Safety by a Revised Prediction Model of the Validated In Vitro Skin Irritation Test (OECD TG 439)

One of the current goals of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Pesticide Programs (US EPA OPP) is to replace by non-animal testing methods as many of the endpoints of the battery of acute toxicity tests known as the “6-pack” as possible. One of the “6-pack” tests is the Draize rabbit test for dermal irritation. We investigated whether the validated in vitro Skin Irritation Test (SIT, OECD TG 439) can be used to determine US EPA OPP dermal hazard category assignment.