CERCLA—See Comprehensive Environmental Response

CERCLA. See Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act. 

The toxicological profiles are developed in response to the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1986 (Public law 99-499) which amended the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA or Superfund). This public law directed ATSDR to prepared toxicological profiles for hazardous substances most commonly found at facilities on the CERCLA National Priorities List and that pose the most significant potential threat to human health, as determined by ATSDR and the EPA. The availability of the revised priority list of 275 hazardous substances was announced in the Federal Register on November 17, 1997 (62 FR 61332). For prior versions of the list of substances, see Federal RegisternoiiCQS dated April 29, 1996 (61 FR 18744) April 17, 1987 (52 FR 12866) October 20, 1988 (53 FR 41280) October 26, 1989 (54 FR 43619) October 17, 1990 (55 FR 42067) October 17, 1991 (56 FR 52166) October 28, 1992 (57 FR 48801) and February 28, 1994 (59 FR 9486). Section 104(i)(3) of CERCLA, as amended, directs the Administrator of ATSDR to prepare a toxicological profile for each substance on the list. 

A reference dose (RfD mg/kg/day) was originally designed for estimating noncancer health risks at CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980) Superfund sites (USEPA, 1989). As such, it is an essential component of the site risk assessment used to assess potential long-term exposures to contaminated media such as soil, where RfDs address the pathway of incidental ingestion of soil particles (see Dourson, 1994 Cicmanec et al, 1996 Abernathy et al, 2004 USEPA, 1989). 

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