Acute toxicity data costs

The first method for detecting water pollution is to carry out comprehensive chemical monitoring and look for concentrations that exceed water quality criteria. However, since over 1500 substances have been listed as freshwater pollutants (Mason, 1981), extensive monitoring can be costly. Additionally, acute and chronic toxicity data are limited for commonly tested organisms and are almost nonexistent for many native species. However, chemical monitoring alone may not detect water pollution... 

As discussed above, luminescent bacteria have been used successfully to measure acute toxicity of chemicals and oivironmental samples. In addition to acute toxicity testing, chemicals and environmental samples are often tested for potential genotoxicity. There are several validated methods in routine use for assessing genotoxicity of chemicals but they have been practical limitations. These limitations include high cost per test sample and complex protocols which necessitate highly trained personnel to obtain reproducible test data, and to provide reliable interpretation. 

Despite these promising clinical data, the toxicities, cost, and complexities of administration have limited the use of radioimmunotherapy. The murine antibodies induce an immune response. This may manifest as acute infusion reactions and human anti-murine antibodies (HAMA), which occur in approximately 2% of patients treated with Y ibritumomab tiuxetan and 9% of patients treated with I tositumomab. Myelosuppression 6-9 weeks after administration is common. Ten percent of patients treated with I tositumomab develop hypothyroidism [92]. The most feared complication of radioimmunotherapy is treatment-related myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Rates of these late, generally incurable toxicities range 1.5—2.5% for Y ibritumomab tiuxetan and 3.5—6.4% for tositumomab [63, 93, 94]. Because ionizing radiation is teratogenic, radioimmunotherapy is contraindicated in all stages of pregnancy. 

Fifty-five percent of the chemicals on the Toxic Release Inventory list have full testing data. Of the 3000 high-volume chemicals (where their production is around 1 million Ib/year) on this list, 43% have no testing data or basic toxicity, and only 7% have a full set of basic test data. For 38,000 chemicals (66% listed by the EPA), fewer than 1000 have been tested for acute effects, and only about 500 have been tested for cancer-causing, reproductive, or mutagenic effects. It was estimated that it would cost only US 427 million to collect the basic data. So it is not the cost of data collection that is the bottleneck but the industries collective lack of will that is the cause. 

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