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Background
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has developed a set of chemical
profile reference documents for use in dealing with Section 302 of Title III
of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA). These EPA profiles
contain a summary of publicly available documented information for chemicals
on the EPA list of extremely hazardous substances listed in the Federal
Register, Vol. 52, No. 77, April 22, 1987.
The profiles were originally developed in 1985 for the 402 chemicals
then called "acutely toxic chemicals" under the Chemical Emergency
Preparedness Program. When the list went into law as the list of extremely
hazardous substances, four additional chemicals were included. Forty of the
406 chemicals were subsequently deleted from the list. Profiles are provided
for the 366 chemicals listed in February, 1988, as extremely hazardous
substances. Other chemicals may be added or deleted in the future. The
profile format was revised and the data were reviewed, augmented, and revised
as appropriate in 1987. The profiles have been reviewed for accuracy and
completeness. However, an exhaustive literature search was not performed for
each chemical, and a review of original citations has not been made.
A profile is provided for each chemical on the list of extremely
hazardous substances. Profiles are presented in ascending order of Chemical
Abstract Service (CAS) registry numbers. One chemical (generic name:
organorhodium complex) is identified by a premanufacture review notice (PMN)
number and appears first.
The CAS number was used to search the automated Toxicology Data Base
(TDB) or Hazardous Substance Data Bank (HSDB) from the National Library of
Medicine (NLM). If available, TDB/HSDB files were retrieved. Approximately
65 percent of the chemicals were listed in the TDB/HSDB files. For these
chemicals, the TDB/HSDB files provided the main source of information for the
profiles. All data obtained from the TDB/HSDB were indicated by an asterisk
(*) followed by a reference to the TDB/HSDB citation, (e.g., (*Merck 1976)).
For those chemicals without a TDB/HSDB file, a limited number of standard
reference materials was searched. Such references are cited by author, year,
and page number. A master list of references, including the secondary
references cited in TDB/HSDB, has been prepared and may be found in the
Reference Section of this document. The abbreviations used in the profiles
have been defined in a master list and may be found in the Abbreviation
Section. Medical terms not commonly used have been included in a Glossary
Section. Dorland's Medical Dictionary (1974) was used to provide most of the
definitions in the Glossary.
If information was not available for a specific compound but the
chemical could be categorized, then general information about the chemical
category was included. Such information is indicated, for example, by the
notation "Non-Specific - - Organophosphorus Pesticide" or "Non-Specific--
Poisonous Solid, n.o.s."
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