1.3 Briefing the Panelists

To focus the workshop discussions, ATSDR prepared a list of questions, commonly called a "charge," and asked the panelists to address charge questions (Appendix B has a list of the charge). The charge for this workshop addresses the three key topics identified earlier: the prevalence of soil-pica behavior, soil ingestion rates among people who exhibit this behavior, and methods for identifying people who have this behavior. Under each issue, the charge presents several questions that ATSDR asked the panelists to discuss. Additionally, the charge included an open-ended topic, under which the panelists were asked to discuss research needs, bioavailability of metals in soils, and any other issue they thought the other charge questions did not address.

ATSDR also provided every panelist a packet of 12 publications on topics related to soil-pica behavior one month prior to the workshop (Section 7 lists these publications).