220 • Alternatives to Animal Use in Research, Testing, and Education 
contacts. Networking is affected by the economic 
factors discussed in chapter 11, such as the pro- 
prietary value of testing data and the incentives 
to make it public. Membership in scientific and 
professional societies and attendance at profes- 
sional meetings facilitates this form of informa- 
tion exchange. Recent test results are often pre- 
sented at meetings of professional societies, and 
valuable information about work in progress is 
exchanged by participants. 
Unpublished data may not be written in report 
form, which makes it difficult to share the infor- 
mation. Although the data are stored in some kind 
of organized fashion, the way one person organizes 
information may not be useful to someone else. 
Thus, even if it is possible to determine that un- 
published useful research or testing data do exist, 
it is often difficult to share them. 
In addition to unpublished material, a separate 
category of information that is fairly inaccessible 
includes many Government reports, research insti- 
tute reports, and obscure journals. This informa- 
tion falls into a grey area— “published” in a literal 
sense, but not in a practical one. 
Information Centers 
Because of the large volume of published and 
unpublished information that is generated, spe- 
cial services called “information centers” have been 
set up to collect, organize, and disseminate it. An 
information center, to be comprehensive, must 
have a fairly narrow scope. These centers are a 
good vehicle for sharing unpublished information, 
although they do not have the resources to seek 
it out. 
The most well known information center with 
holdings of research and testing data is the Inter- 
national Agency for Research on Cancer, in Lyons, 
France. The United Nations maintains several col- 
lections of published and unpublished data on 
chemicals potentially of international interest, e.g., 
through the International Program on Chemical 
Safety and the International Registry for Poten- 
tially Toxic Chemicals in Geneva, Switzerland. 
These agencies have a much broader scope than 
a typical information center, although they carry 
out many of the same functions. The Oak Ridge 
National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, TN, has indi- 
vidual information centers for environmental car- 
cinogens, teratogens, and mutagens. Statistics on 
the volume and rate of growth of publications in 
the areas for which Oak Ridge has holdings are 
given in table 10-1. 
Table 10-1.— Growth and Publication Frequency of Literature Related to 
Genetic Toxicology, Carcinogenicity, and Teratogenicity 
Subject 
Papers 
published 
per year 3 
Increase in papers 
published per year b 
Publication sources 
providing 
information 0 
Genetic toxicology 
. 4,000-5,000 
200-300 
3,400 
In vivo animal carcinogenicity 
studies 
. 1,500-2,000 
50-100 
1,000 
In vitro cell transformation 
studies 
400-500 
25-50 
500 
Teratogenicity 
. 2,000-2,800 
100-150 
3,500 
a Figures would be substantially greater if augmented with unpublished or inaccessible published material. 
^Numbers shown are projected increases based on trends cataloged from the literature for the period 1979-84. 
c lncludes journals, books, symposium proceedings, government reports, and abstracts. 
SOURCEiJ.S. Wassom, Director, Environmental Mutagen, Carcinogen, and Teratogen Information Program, Oak Ridge Nation- 
al Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, personal communication, November 1985. 
