Toxicologist: roles and jobs
A toxicologist is an expert that does the job to obtain information about chemical toxicity by either chemical analogies, epidemiology studies or toxicology studies.
Are there any complete references about toxic chemicals?
The number of tocix chemicals and their effects are so numerous and diverse that it would be difficult for any agencies or individual to know and gather all information what all the effects are and to evaluate the possible risk associated with exposure.
What Toxicologist focus on?
Generally, a toxicologist only focuses on one or two specific areas of toxic chemicals. Part of reasons are due to so enormous amount of toxic substances in the world that makes impossible to evaluate all of them.
What a toxicologist do?
A major job that a toxicologist does is to evaluate the information concerning chemical exposure. This will aid in the process of development and implementation of various rules and regulations, conducted by government agencies related to this field. The information will then be used to establish acceptable exposure levels. These levels are obtained from several sources, such as chemical analogies, epidemiological studies, or animal experimentation (toxicological studies). These sources are used to identify possible effects associated with chemical exposure, to assess the risk as a result of exposure, and to develop exposure limits. We will cover that later about exposure limits. Basically, what a toxicologist should have are information about effective dose, whether this is acute or chronic exposure, and to obtain dose-response relationship.
The dose-response relationship is important in determining the toxicity of a particular substance. In general, the larger the dose the greater the response. Information such as the dose, exposure time, and observed response, is crucial to obtain risk associate with chemical exposure in a particular place. This information will then be used by regulatory agencies to establish acceptable exposure levels.
