Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM)
The Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
established an ad hoc Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation
of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM) in September 1994 to develop a report responsive
to the requirements in the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 (P. L. 103-43).
The Act required NIEHS to establish criteria for the validation and regulatory acceptance
of alternative toxicological testing methods and to recommend a process to achieve
the regulatory acceptance of scientifically valid alternative test methods.
In 1997, the ad hoc Committee published its final report, Validation and Regulatory
Acceptance of Toxicological Test Methods. An ICCVAM consisting of 15 federal
agencies was established as a standing committee in 1997 to implement a process
by which new test methods of agency interest could be evaluated and to coordinate
cross-agency interactions related to issues on the development, validation, acceptance,
and national and international harmonization of toxicological test methods.
With enactment of the ICCVAM Authorization Act of 2000 (P. L. 106-545,
42 U.S.C. 2851-3), ICCVAM was made a permanent interagency committee
of NIEHS under NICEATM, which is located at NIEHS in
Research TrianglePark
.
NICEATM and ICCVAM have developed a Five-Year Plan to:
- Research, develop, translate, and validate new and revised non-animal
and other alternative assays for integration of relevant and reliable methods into
Federal agency testing programs
- Identify areas of high priority for new and revised non-animal
and alternative assays or batteries of those assays to create a path forward for
the replacement, reduction, and refinement of animal tests, when this is scientifically
valid and appropriate
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