ABSTRACT
Federal legislative agencies and commercial manufacturers must consider numerous risks when developing, registering, certifying, and shipping materials that produce corrosivity. In order to evaluate the risk of dermal corrosivity, an in vivo procedure based on the Department of Transportation (DOT) Method of Testing Corrosion to Skin1 -3 is currently being used within the United States. 4
In 1977, the United Nations printed special recommendations for class eight chemicals. The distinctions among chemicals in Packing Groups I, II and III were outlined. In subsequent years, legislative activity in Europe has increased in an attempt to classify and label potentially dangerous preparations. 5 - 7
The chemical industry in Europe uses slightly different guidelines. This group bases their guidelines on European Commission7 classifications, which state that a substance is corrosive if, when applied to intact animal skin, it produces full thickness destruction of the tissue in at least 2 of 6 animals within 4 h. If destruction occurs within 3 min, an R35 class is assigned to the test sample, If destruction occurs between 3 min and 4 h, the test sample is classified as R34.
