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This volume contains the first three reports the Committee on Risk Assessment Methodology (CRAM) in the National Research Council (NRC) Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. The committee's work was sponsored by a consortium of federal agencies and private organizations, including EPA, NIOSH, the U.S. Army Biomedical Research and Development Laboratory, the American Petroleum Institute, and the American Industrial Health Council. The committee was charged to assess the scientific basis, inference assumptions, and regulatory uses of and research need in risk assessment. The committee has investigated these issues partly through a series of narrowly focused workshops. Topics were chosen in consultation with federal regulatory agencies on the basis of scientific considerations and the needs of the agencies. One source is a list of subjects that appeared in Risk Assessment if the Federal Government, which has become known as the Red Book. CRAM's reports are intended to provide guidance to regulatory decision-makers on specific questions; they are not broad, thorough scientific analyses, as are many NRC reports. The committee has focused on methodology; accordingly, its deliberations on each topic takes into account not only potential problems with existing methods, but also the suitability of alternative methods for risk assessment.(source website)