Toxicological information on chemicals published in the Russian language: Contribution to REACH and 3Rs

This review is reporting on the current situation of publicly available toxicological and ecotoxicological information on chemicals published in Russian language in various libraries, databases as well as in the Internet. This information can be beneficial for the new EU chemical policy REACH and for the development of intelligent testing strategies (involving also QSAR and QAAR) that enable a significant increase in the use of non-testing information for regulatory decision making, thus minimizing the need for animal testing according to the 3R's strategy. Currently, the access to this information is limited due to the language barrier and low level of digitalization of respective journals and books. Fortunately, on-line translation services are overcoming language barriers already now.