The National Toxicology Program (NTP) strives to raise awareness of cancer hazards in our environment. Identifying cancer hazards is key to primary prevention, informing public health decision-making, and decreasing the global cancer burden. In December 2021, the U.S. congressionally mandated 15th Report on Carcinogens (RoC) was released, adding eight new substances to the cumulative report. Chronic infection with Helicobacter pylori is listed as ‘known to be a human carcinogen’. Antimony trioxide and six haloacetic acids found as water disinfection byproducts – dichloroacetic acid, dibromoacetic acid, bromochloroacetic acid, tribromoacetic acid, bromodichloroacetic acid, chlorodibromoacetic acid – are each listed as ‘reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen’. A new dashboard provides interactive visualization and interrogation of the 256 listed substances, their uses, and associated cancers. Also, NTP recently published a Cancer Hazard Assessment Report on exposure scenarios associated with circadian disruption, concluding that (1) persistent night shift work can cause breast cancer, and (2) certain lighting conditions may cause cancer. As highlighted in these reports and evaluations, we are evolving our approaches to meet contemporary challenges. These approaches include (1) focusing on real-world exposures and (2) advancing our methods to address challenges in cancer hazard assessments, e.g., developing more structured approaches to evaluate mechanistic data and incorporating read-across approaches to assess chemicals lacking adequate human or animal cancer data. To promote public health, we provide information on environmental health disparities and disease prevention. Building on these efforts, we aim to continue our contributions to the “war on cancer”, declared 50 years ago.
