Chemical Information System (The CIS)

THE CIS NEWS	OCTOBER 2001

In response to user requests, we are reviving The CIS News. The CIS News was published for years in print form and mailed monthly or bi-monthly to subscribers. In future it will be published in E-mail form and sent to subscribers on an occasional basis as developments warrant. It’s coming to you from the CIS E-mail address -- cissupport@nisc.com. Comments, questions, suggestions, etc., should be directed to that address.

OCTOBER UPDATE

The CIS update that appeared on the system in early October included several noteworthy developments:

Expanded PRP List: The CERCLIS database now includes an expanded list of PRPs, the first such expanded list that EPA has issued in several years. The number of records that include PRP lists increased from 1,263 to 1,885. As usual, the lists as received from EPA are poorly prepared. Consequently, as usual, there is a spelling- compensation program operating behind the scenes to increase your chances of getting an appropriate hit no matter how a given name is spelled (or abbreviated) on the list. That is, you can search in the RP field for VOLKSWAGEN (the correct spelling) and hit a record even if it contains the name as VOLKSWAGON (an actual example). Note, however, that the quality of site- oriented databases from EPA is notoriously poor, and even CIS cannot guarantee that any given search will retrieve every record that it ought to retrieve.

New/Restored Databases: Several databases previously available through CIS were restored to the system in October – DOCKET, GENETOX, and CCRIS. DOCKET identifies companies/individuals/ facilities that have been the subject of legal or administrative proceedings by EPA. GENETOX deals with mutagenicity assays, and CCRIS with carcinogenicity testing. For a list of all the databases currently included in CIS, click on the I to the left of the Database File box in the upper right of the Advanced search screen (the screen on which you find yourself when you first log on to The CIS).

FULL-TEXT TSCATS DOCUMENTS ONLINE

A few full-text TSCATS documents started appearing online back in January on a test basis, and the number of full-text documents available online is now several hundred. This is only a fraction of the total number of documents referenced in the database – around 25,000 – but the number of available online documents should increase substantially over the next year. Furthermore, the same technique used to display full-text documents to users will soon be extended to other databases, including AQUIRE and RTECS.

If you haven’t yet run across one of the available online TSCATS documents, here’s a search that will retrieve a few. On the ADVANCED search screen – the screen you see when you first log on to CIS – enter ROHM in the Key Word field (upper left), enter 753-73-1 in the Chemical Name/CAS RN field (below Key Word), and enter TSCATS in the Database field (upper right). Then click on SEARCH.

The search retrieves three records. Display the first of these (by clicking on the yellow VIEW symbol on the left). The fifth line of text in the record says CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT. Click on that line, and you’ll be able to click through to an actual on-screen display of the document referenced in the TSCATS record. You can print this document, or save it, or do whatever you like with it. There’s no special charge for it.

Now, some warnings:

You need a good Internet connection. We picked the example above because the original document is small—only a single page. It should be possible for anyone accessing CIS to display it. However, many of the online documents referenced in TSCATS are huge – thousands of pages, in files that are 20, 30, or even 50 million bytes in size. If you have a poor Internet connection – a slow connection, running through an ordinary telephone line, for example – you’ll almost certainly find everything stalling if you try to display one of the larger files. You may have to confine yourself to retrieving only small documents if you cannot upgrade your connection. (As you click through to the example above, you’ll see where we notify you of the size of the document you’re dealing with.)

You need the current version of Adobe Acrobat. Online documents in TSCATS are in.pdf format. This means you’ll need to have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer. Furthermore, you should be using Adobe Acrobat 5.0, the latest version. (Earlier versions will probably work for small documents, but we ourselves had trouble retrieving larger documents until we deleted the old Adobe Acrobat we were using and updated to version 5.0.) To get a copy of the latest version of Adobe Acrobat – no charge – visit this URL: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html.

Of course, those TSCATS-referenced documents not yet available online are still available on microfiche from CIS: Just send a request identifying the fiche you want, and your mailing address, to sales@nisc.com. The fiche will be sent with an invoice. The invoice will reflect a $25.00 order charge (which applies only once per order, no matter how many packets/panes of fiche you’re ordering), a per-pane charge ($1.25 per pane of fiche), and a postage charge ($1.00 minimum).

RTECS STATUS

The RTECS database has been produced by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) since the 1970s. Late last year, however, the government began an effort to have production of the database taken over by the private sector. This process is not yet complete. As a result of it, editorial work on the database ceased early 2001 and no updates have been issued. The version of RTECS available on The CIS now is the last that was issued before the editorial suspension, and it will continue to be available until such time as updates are resumed. We are staying in touch with the negotiations concerning RTECS, and we will update you as the situation develops.

OHMTADS STATUS

One database about which users occasionally inquire is OHMTADS. We did not make OHMTADS a priority when we converted CIS to the Internet because it has not been updated by EPA since the mid-1980s, and much of the information it contains is therefore obsolete. We suggest that users looking for OHMTADS-type information would be better served by HSDB (Hazardous Substances Data Bank), which has been available on The CIS for some months now.

However, OHMTADS is still a treasure-trove of references to useful information, and it could still be useful if presented with appropriate warnings about the extent to which the material it contains is outdated. Consequently, we plan to re-introduce it to The CIS some time in the next few months. A great deal of effort is being expended on cleaning up anomalies in the file, and we will bring it back just as soon as that process is complete.

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