General

5/07/2008
NLM Aids Federal Effort to Distribute Revised Hazmat Guidebooks to Emergency First Responders

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that it is granting emergency responders electronic access to the Emergency Response Guidebook 2008 (ERG2008), through laptops and personal digital assistants (PDAs), under a joint effort between DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the National Library of Medicine (NLM. This new hazmat safety guide for police, fire and other emergency response organizations is designed to aid emergency response personnel who may be the first to arrive at the scene of a transportation incident involving hazardous materials. The NLM-developed software application and NLM's Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders (WISER) software are stand-alone applications for Pocket PCs, PDAs, and Windows-based laptop computers. This joint effort keeps pace with the advance of portable personal technology and fulfills the request of a number of emergency responders for an electronic-based ERG. DOT is also distributing nearly 1.75 million print copies of the ERG.

4/03/2008
Disaster Information Management Research Center (DIMRC) Launched

The DIMRC web site provides access to quality disaster health information at all stages of preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery. Initially, the site will focus on NLM and NLM-supported resources and activities. It will then expand to include other sources of authoritative disaster health information.

DIMRC collects, organizes, and disseminates health information for natural, accidental, or deliberate disasters.  The Center is committed to providing this information as part of the federal effort to help prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the adverse health effects of disasters. It will work with federal, state, and local government, private organizations, and local communities.

2/13/2008
Drug Information Portal Released

The NLM Drug Information Portal gives the public, healthcare professionals, and researchers a gateway to current, accurate and understandable drug information from the National Library of Medicine and other key government agencies.

More than 15,000 drug records are available for searching. The search interface is straightforward, requiring only a drug name as a search term, and successful searching is enhanced by the assistance of a spellchecker. The Drug Information Portal offers a varied selection of resources and focused topics in medicine and drug-related information, with links to individual resources with potential drug information and summaries tailored to various audiences. General drug categories from MeSH are also included in the Drug Portal records.

2/2/2008
Special Populations: Emergency and Disaster Preparedness

A new Web page, Special Populations: Emergency and Disaster Preparedness, is available on the Specialized Information Services (SIS) Web site. The page provides relevant information regarding the needs of special population groups in planning and preparation before, and response and recovery after disasters and emergencies. It was created after natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, diseases such as SARS and West Nile Virus, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 illustrated the need to ensure widespread access to knowledge about populations with unique needs in these emergencies. The population groups addressed include the mentally and physically disabled, senior citizens, minority, ethnic and language groups, women and children and others whose situations require different or specialized measures be taken in disaster preparedness and recovery. Also includes links to information in languages other than English.

Environmental Health & Toxicology

4/17/08
New Enviro-Health Link page on Mercury and Human Health

Mercury's effects on health are a common concern. This new web bibliography, Mercury and Human Health,includes links to sites about mercury reduction, occupational exposure, compact fluorescent light bulbs, mercury in health care, and regulations and state legislation.

4/17/08
TRI 2006 Released

The new TRI 2006 release contains 87,870 records. TRI87-2006 now has 1,738,086 records. There were two changes to reporting requirements for the 2006 data. Facilities were required to submit appropriate North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes rather than the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes previously used. To do trends analysis, EPA assigned NAICS codes to prior years' data, so now both SIC codes and NAICS codes are searchable on TOXNET. EPA also expanded Form A eligibility to include PBT chemicals in 2006.

4/17/08
TOXMAP: Now Includes TRI 2006, Updated Health Data

TOXMAP now includes the 2006 Toxics Release Inventory data (TRI).

2/12/08
TOXMAP: New Health Data, Roads

TOXMAP now contains updated cancer and other mortality data. TOXMAP also now shows more detailed roads at a variety of map scales. (Roads and other reference data can be hidden from maps via the "Other Data" subtab.)

Other recent changes include:

• Facility details include latitude/longitude and links to Google Maps
• Redesigned Search and Set Region pages
• Added "go to" page number for search results
• Added aggregate release data values in downloadable TRI facility data
• Added HTML Site Map; Added Income 2003 demographic layer
• Added ability to link directly to site details (all map types).

1/10/08
Carcinogenic Potency Database (CPDB)

CPDB, the Carcinogenic Potency Database, was developed by the Carcinogenic Potency Project at the University of California, Berkeley, and by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It reports analyses of animal cancer tests on 1547 chemicals. Results for each chemical are now searchable via TOXNET.

CPDB includes 6540 chronic, long-term animal cancer tests (both positive and negative for carcinogenicity) from the general published literature as well as from the National Cancer Institute and the National Toxicology Program. Such tests are used in support of cancer risk assessments for humans. Information that is important in the interpretation of bioassays is reported in CPDB for each experiment.

Users can search for results on each chemical in TOXNET via chemical name or name fragment, or by Chemical Abstracts Service Registry Number (RN). Results include a summary for each sex-species tested, including carcinogenicity, target organs, and carcinogenic potency values. Detailed results from each experiment on the particular chemical are given in a plot format suitable for screen viewing. Chemical structure, InChI, and SMILES codes are reported

Chemical Information

 

HIV/AIDS Information

 

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