As part of its health-related responsibilities pertaining to hazardous waste sites and emergency chemical releases, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) requested that the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) gather an NRC committee to review and evaluate the usefulness of animal epidemiologic studies for human risk assessment and recommend the types of data that should be collected. In response, the Committee on Animals as Monitors of Environmental Hazards was formed in the NRC's Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology in the Commission on Life Sciences