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Commissions
and Reports
Communication Commission
Report
IUTOX Commission on Communication
2001-2004 Report
Members: M.H. Karol (chair), P. Wright, C.L. Galli
Objectives
To interact effectively with
1. The IUTOX Executive Committee
2. Member Societies with particular attention to developing societies
3. Other organizations such as WHO-IPCS, ICSU, IARC
4. With the scientific arena including scientific journals
5. With the public through public forums and the media
Tasks
1. Select an Editor for the Newsletter
2. Produce and distribute a yearly IUTOX Newsletter
3. Design and operate an informative and efficient website that
contains rapid interventions and fast updating of toxicological information,
new books and publications, toxicological assessments
4. Identify scientific issues for comment in the media
5. Identify issues to increase public understanding of toxicologyAccomplishments
Website
One of the major accomplishments of this Commission was the redesign and operation
of the IUTOX website. This task was spearheaded by Paul Wright. The IUTOX website
was designed by AIM and was launched in April 2003. Features of the website
include:
- Rapid loading & easy
navigation
- Scrolling “latest
news” menu
- Access to activities,
meetings, resources, newsletter and reports
- Search function,
drop-down menus
- Links to member
societies (Societies can update their own information)
- Host Web page “shell” for
societies without a Website
Usage of the website has increased during the past 3 years (see Figure).
The most frequented areas of the website were those related to conferences
(especially ICT X), membership information (society members & information);
toxicology
activities, materials and toxlinks.
Newsletter
In view of the widespread use of the internet for rapid dissemination
of news, the Executive Committee decided to use the website to convey “News” and
to disband production of a formal Newsletter. Kevin Chipman was named “editor” of
the news feature on the website. A scrolling ‘latest news” feature
on the front page of the website assures that news is brought to the attention
of the website visitor.
Other activities
The EC decided that tasks 3 and 4 were of less urgency and should be postponed.
Interaction with ICSU was ongoing and was lead by the Erik Dybing.
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