Talk:Toxicity

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[edit] There

There are toxins, mutagens, tetragens... classified according to their impact on cells. Colloquially, the latter are considered toxic, so they should be linked here too.

The unsigned comment above was the original message on this page, placed by 142.177.77.65 on 18 January 2003

[edit] What is the derivation relating to the idea of the Saftey Factor?

IN article "Toxicity" - refered in paragraph starting: Toxicity can be measured by the effects on the target (organism, organ, or tissue). a concept is refered to. The saftey factor is brought up in my Toxicology course in college when the NOEL concept is explained. NOEL being the No Observable Effects Limit, is then divided by a safety factor (i.e 100).

Is this to put representation into numerical form to reflect the results of the toxicity study of a particular substance? So would the Safety Factor really be a percentage type figure, or is it more focused on why the result was returned. i.e - factors such as, how the organism metabolised the substance, how the dose was inflicted upon the organism, how reliable the substance is at reacting in an organism, etc. If the latter is the case, this would mean that no 'universal saftey factor' would exist for a substance because all organisms are different from eachother both in families and not in families.

Kthx, please respond with an answer that states: Saftey Factor is used when.... Saftey Factor is applied to return what exactly when relating to a NOEL graph.

A Safety Factor is an arbitrary number applied as a divisor "just in case" - after all available quantitative adjustments and calculations as a way to be more comfortable that a suggested acceptable level would not be likely to produce a toxic effect in humans. There used to be a broad agreement in the toxicology community as to what safety factor should be applied. The agreement seems to have broken down over the last couple of decades, with more variation in what is proposed based on who is speaking and what the toxic effect is being examined. Pzavon 02:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

See added text in article. OccDoc 23:09, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Plant toxicity to pets

I don't know if this is the proper place to ask this, but I'm looking for a page about the various toxicities of plants to pets. If there is no such page, or no such information on wikipedia, what would we need to do to get such a page started? I don't know enough about it to do it myself, but I think it's something that's pretty important. Question posted 2 July 2007 by User:Ishmayl