fects). The committee recommends that some research with potential long-term rewards be continued even in the absence of immediate applications. Such experiments may provide insight into delayed adverse health effects. That research includes studies on the binding of CWAs to and reactivation from target and nontarget tissues, toxicogenomics, and biochemical effects noted at concentrations less than the MTD.

The committee concludes that DOD’s Master Research Plan on low-level exposures to CWAs, in general, is well planned and many of the proposed research tasks are likely to provide valuable information to DOD in protecting military personnel from low-level exposures to CWAs, in terms of avoiding performance decrements and delayed health effects. The Research Plan includes some studies that have some potential to identify delayed adverse health effects, but those studies should be assigned lower priority in the context of DOD’s primary objectives. Available information to date does not, however, provide a sound basis for anticipation of delayed adverse health effects following low-level (in particular, short-term) exposures to nerve agents. However, the committee recommends that a small proportion of the DOD research budget be allocated to some research tasks to rule out the possibility of delayed health effects.