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Critical report for ECVAM
The European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods is located at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) at Ispra in Northern Italy. The JRC is the main research centre set up by the European Union to conduct research projects funded by Member States. As one would expect of such a European institution, the JRC has an ongoing programme of assessment and evaluation.
The European Commission recently published the report of the evaluation of the JRC by a number of visiting expert groups during 1996. ECVAM is part of the Environment Institute at the JRC and, whilst the report of the Visiting Group on this institute as a whole was complimentary, they recorded a number of concerns about ECVAM in particular. They expressed concern to learn that the work at ECVAM had not progressed as fully as had been hoped. Whilst they were pleased that the aspect of the ECVAM mission concerning information exchange and "the initiation of a broad dialogue with all interested parties" had been fully developed, they noted that the work on a database of alternative methods had not been started and that their work on validation of alternative methods "had not yet led to definitive results." The report added that " the priorities of the Unit with regard to work areas is questioned by both the customer DG and the Visiting Group." In this case the customer DG is Directorate-General XI of the Commission.
Whilst the report gave a brief acknowledgement to the difficulty of developing and validating alternative methods on such short time-scales, and the fact that ECVAM was still building up its qualified staff, little attention was paid to these points. It is a matter for serious concern that ECVAM might be judged for failing to meet its targets on unrealistic time-scales. However, there is acute political pressure within the EU to 'solve the problem' of cosmetic testing by developing and validating all the required alternative methods and ECVAM is regarded by many EU politicians as the body responsible for producing that 'solution'.
The report contains some worrying hints about the future of ECVAM. It notes that the Unit has excellent, but underexploited, facilities and that the Visiting Group took the view that these "could also serve as a temporary working place for national teams or other needs of the Environment Institute." The Visiting Group also expressed their confidence that the Director of the Environment Institute "will take actions to meet the customer requirements and to state priorities."
If ECVAM has found it difficult to recruit enough scientific staff, it seems unlikely that this is the fault of the unit itself and, if progress has been slower than expected, this should be an argument for increasing the resources directed at the problem, rather than wondering how to use up the free laboratory space. The simple fact is that developing and validating alternative methods is a lengthy and complicated scientific task which needs to be properly resourced.