Toxicology facts for kids

T Toxicologist at work

Toxicology is the study of how chemicals hurt living things. Toxicologists use biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and medicine. Measuring toxicity of a substance (relation between does and effect), is a major part of the work.

Many chemicals that we call poisons are only toxic when made into different chemicals by the body. Many chemicals are made toxic in the liver by enzymes, for example paracetamol, which is a common drug. There is also some variation in liver enzymes (caused by genetic variation) in different people that can cause a substance to be more toxic in one person than it is in another. Some substances are also only toxic when they are with other chemicals, as one liver enzyme can cause activity in another enzyme.

Some measures of toxicity

• LD₅₀ is a test that finds an average dose required to kill half of the animals being tested (normally rats in human toxicity).
• The Fixed Dose Procedure, an alternative to the LD50 which measures oral toxicity in a similar way, but using fewer animals and with less suffering.
• Minimum lethal dose (MLD, also LD_min), the smallest amount of drug that can produce death in an animal species under controlled conditions.
• Draize test
• LD_Lo
• IC₅₀
• EC₅₀

Related pages

• In vitro toxicology
• Toxicity

Images for kids

• 

  Lithograph of Mathieu Orfila

See also

In Spanish: Toxicología para niños