The electronic submission on the Chemical Substances Control Law in Japan

-The electronic systems using XML and database system for the great volume of the document required for the notification of New Chemical Substances-

Abstract

Under the current Japanese regulation based on the Chemical Substances Control Law, when the notification of new industrial chemical substance has been submitted to the government, it needs a pile of documents as the summary and original testing data set concerned with chemicals' hazardous properties, such as toxicity. For the safety assessment of the new chemical, each applicant has been required to submit extensive copies of documents to the regulatory authority, as assessment materials. Preparation of the materials has resulted in the large burden of the applicant. The electronic application works of the assessment materials are carried out for decreasing the burden. In the electronic application, the only original notification form (the usual 1 page) is presented by paper, whereas other documents about the chemical to be assessed are made as the electronic form by the XML and TIFF. The submitted data by the XML type are accumulated in the relational database system, and the database system are conjugated for the simplification of disposal of business for notification and the efficient safety assessment of new chemicals. It may have a plan to start the electronic submission using this system in 2001.