IUCLID: A Database on Chemical Substances Information as a Tool for the EU-Risk-Assessment Program

A database on so-called “Existing Chemicals” is being developed at the European Chemicals Bureau (ECB). The database IUCLID contains all data sets submitted by Industry following Council Regulation (EEC) 793/931 on the “Evaluation and Control of the Risks of Existing Substances”. The Regulation obliges Industry to submit all readily available data on “High Production Volume Chemicals”, using the HEDSET software package, to the ECB. Copies of the database are being used by the European Commission and in the EU-Member States Authorities as the data source for selecting priority substances and for carrying out the risk assessment on them. The outcome of the risk assessment process will be a validated IUCLID data sheet which includes a summary risk assessment report for each priority substance. The multilingual database is available from the ECB, in IUCLID format or as an easy to use CD-ROM version, including the original data submitted by Industry and later the validated data and the risk assessment reports.