How do chemists find out whether or not a chemical is toxic without, well, ingesting it?
In: Chemistry
Scientist pretty much determine if a chemical is toxic by taking a reference group of animals and check at which dosis kills half of the population. The measurement is called Ld50 (lethal dosis, 50%). By taking the biomass of mice for example into account a lethal dosis for humans can be determined. This is not always reliable due to physiological difference between the two, so sometimes they check the dosis on human tissue cultured in the lab.
All chemicals are toxin when breaking a certain threshold.
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