ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, government agencies, especially the National Cancer Institute (NCI), used animal tests to predict carcinogenicity, though at first to learn more about the relation between chemical structure and carcinogenicity and not for regulatory purposes. In November of 1978, the Secretary of the then Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW) established the National Toxicology Program (NTP), aware of the need to test chemicals for carcinogenicity (and other toxic end points), the limited ability of existing programs to keep up with the demands of new legislation, and the lack of coordinated testing.
