Improving the incentives for toxicity testing

The legal systems for the classification and labelling of chemical substances have an incentives structure that discourages rather than encourages companies to test their products. This is shown in a logical analysis of the European classification system and also in an analysis of recent changes in the classification of individual substances. Finally two methods to improve the incentives structure are proposed and discussed: the introduction of negative clauses that allow new information to lead to less strict classifications, and a new danger-class and a symbol (a question mark) that indicates serious lack of data.