Toxic industrial agents medical

Marrs TC, Ma5mard RL, Sidell FR (eds) (2007) Chemical warfare agents toxicology and treatment. John Wiley and Sons Ltd, Chichester, UK Tuorinsky SD, Sciuto A (2008) Toxic inhalational injury and toxic industrial chemicals. In Tuorinsky SD (ed) Medical aspects of chemical warfare. Office of the Surgeon General, US Army. Borden Institute, Washington DC, USA pp 339-370 (Chap. 10)... 

Despite the continuing debate and lack of peer-reviewed medical evidence that surrounds the Damascus incident, what is known overall provides important and relevant lessons for those faced with the unexpected management of toxic trauma as a result of the release of a chemical warfare agent or toxic industrial chemical. These illustrate many of the points presented earher in this book and may be summarised as follows ... 

Currently, scientists and experts from many countries are working on development and implementation of a readiness for anti terrorist actions. In addition to chemical weapons, terrorists can use various toxic chemicals from chemical industry, agriculture or products released from terrorist acts on industrial facilities. The arsenal of chemical agents that can be used as terrorist agents is practically unlimited. The focus of this workshop was assessment of scientific concepts and practical means for management of chemical agent casualties in the area of terrorist attack with emphasis on improving the medical treatment and decontamination. These problems were analyzed from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

There are several such toxic agents that cause considerable medical, public and political concern. Two examples are discussed here the heavy metal ions (e.g. lead, mercury, copper, cadmium) and the fluorophosphonates. Heavy metal ions readily form complexes with organic compounds which are lipid soluble so that they readily enter cells, where the ions bind to amino acid groups in the active site of enzymes. These two types of inhibitors are discussed in Boxes 3.5 and 3.6. There is also concern that some chemicals in the environment, (e.g. those found in industrial effluents, rubbish tips and agricultural sprays), although present at very low levels, can react with enhanced reactivity groups in enzymes. Consequently, only minute amounts concentrations are effective inhibitors and therefore can be toxic. It is suggested that they are responsible for some non-specific or even specific diseases (e.g. breast tumours). 

In different years, Russian toxicologists implemented into practice antidotic agents for medical aid to those affected with high toxic organophosphorus poisonous substance (PS), such as aphin, dipiroxime, budaxim. The studies have been completed on development and implementation into industrial production of an antidote for self-care and mutual aid, pelixime, as well as a ChR, carboxime (l-4-methyl-5-[21-(benzyl dimethyl ammonium) ethyl]) carbamoilpyridinium-2-aldoxime dichloride [88, 89],... 

According to a conservative estimate of the research activities of the US pharmaceutical industry alone, several millions of new compounds are synthesized every year, approximately 50,000 of which are highly toxic. In the search for medical cures these toxic compounds are of little utility. However, they have one of the key requirements, toxicity, of any potential chemical warfare agent. This does not automatically make them a suitable candidate for this purpose, but since the information on these compounds remains with the companies that first synthesized them, this might provide a very useful resource to tap into in any search for new chemical warfare agents.38 If the utilization of chlorine and phosgene during World War I... 

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