BASIC ENVIRONMENTAL

TOXICOLOGY
HEALTH IV
Environmental Health
Problem 1: Which statement is the most correct?
A. Chemicals manufactured
by humans are more
dangerous to human health
than naturally occurring
chemicals.
B. Both natural and human-
made chemicals are
potentially toxic to humans.
C. Naturally occurring
chemicals are more
poisonous to humans than
synthetic chemicals.
Toxic chemicals can occur naturally.
e.g.
a. rattlesnake poison
b. botulin is the toxin which
causes food poisoning and is
produced by bacteria.
c. Radon is a radioactive gas that
enters homes and buildings
from the rocks and soil beneath
them.
Toxic chemicals can also be created
by humans.
e.g. lead-based paints or
pesticides such as DDT.
 The dose makes the difference.
Paracelsus, a Swiss physician, wrote in 1567 that:
All substances are poisonous.
There is nothing which isn't poisonous.
The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy.

This means that ALL chemicals, natural or synthetic,

have the potential to be hazardous substances to
humans, BUT the level of harm depends on the dose.
Problem 2: Four of the items below are sources of hazardous
substances/agent, which one is the hazardous substance/agent?
Hazard: Source:

A. Clogged furnace animal

dander
fur-bearing animals, such as dogs or
cats
B. Cigarette carbon broken appliances that incompletely
monoxide burn natural gas or oil, such as
C. A dog furnaces or stoves
dust mite dust mites living in beds, carpets,
D. Paint applied particles curtains, furniture
before 1978 lead paint applied before 1978, batteries,
water pipes
E. Dust mite part mercury thermometers, filling in teeth,
batteries
A hazardous substance is one
that causes harm to our mold molds which are found especially in
health. spores damp places like showers
Hazards must come from a tobacco lighted cigarettes or cigars
source. smoke
Problem 3: Which of the following is NOT a possible route
of entry for a hazard?

A. Ingestion
B. Absorption
C. Exposure
D. Inhalation
To cause harm to a person, a hazard
must enter the body. Merely being
exposed will not cause harm if the
hazard does not actually enter the
body. There are 3 primary ways that
a hazard can enter the body:
Problem 4: When DDT, a pesticide, enters the human
body, it is __________________.

A. Water-soluble and is
easily excreted in urine After a chemical enters the
body, it is carried by the
B. Stored in the bones blood to different locations.
C. Not toxic, but is
processed by enzymes What happens next depends
and becomes a on the size, shape and
solubility of the chemical.
different compound Solubility means whether
which is toxic it can dissolve in water or
D. Fat-soluble and can be lipids.
stored in fat tissue
DDT is not very soluble in water, so it gets stored in fats and can
remain in the body for a very long time.
Chemicals which are very water soluble are quickly eliminated from
the body in the urine.
Biotransformation - certain chemicals are processed by the body's
enzymes into different, less harmful or more rapidly removed
chemicals.
e.g. a. without biotransformation, ethanol takes 4 weeks to be
removed from the body.
b. with biotransformation, ethanol is changed into a more
water soluble form and is removed within days or hours.
Bioactivation - non-toxic chemical is processed by the body's
enzymes into a toxic chemical.
e.g. carbon tetrachloride is a chemical that used to be used for
cleaning. When it enters the body, it is non-toxic, but it is quickly
processed into a toxic chemical called trichloromethyl radical.
Problem 5: Who took the largest dosage of aspirin?
A. An adult woman who The dose is the specific
weighs 125 lbs and amount of a chemical that
took 300mg of aspirin enters the body.
B. A teenage boy who
weighs 135 lbs and Dosage is the amount of
took 600mg of aspirin chemical per unit of body
C. A baby who weighs 20 weight. Often the two
lbs and took 100mg of words are used
aspirin interchangeably.
D. A Chihuahua who
Dosage = __DOSE__
weighs 5 lbs and took
weight
50mg of aspirin
Problem 6: Which will NOT help you determine the dose of a hazardous
gas received by a person?
A. Their respiration rate
B. Their length of
exposure to the gas
C. The source of the gas
D. Their frequency of
exposure to the gas
E. The concentration of
the gas
F. The gas’s chemical and
biological properties
When a person is exposed to
a hazard, such as a toxic gas,
there are several things that
determine the amount that
actually enters the body.
One way to determine a
person's dose is to do a
blood test to measure the
amount of chemical in their
body.
For many chemicals, there is no easy way to measure them in the
blood. Scientists must measure other factors to estimate dose.
Some measurements that can be used are:
1. Respiration rate - If they are breathing quickly, they will breathe
in more of the gas than if they are breathing slowly. So their dose is
higher if they are breathing heavily.
2. Hazard concentration - A higher concentration of a hazardous
gas means a higher dose because there is more of the hazard to
breath in.
3. Frequency of exposure - A person exposed only once is likely to
have a smaller dose than a person exposed many times.
4. Length of exposure - A person exposed for a short time will have
a lower dose than a person exposed for a long length of time.
5. Properties of the toxin - Some gases are not easily absorbed by
the human body and exposure does not lead to as high a dose as
exposure to a gas that is easily absorbed.
Problem 7: Most hazardous substances exhibit a “dose-response
relationship”. What does this mean?
A. The harm caused by the
hazard increases as the The amount of damage
amount of hazard entering
the body (dose) increases.
(response) caused by a
B. It does not matter how big chemical that has
a dose you receive, you entered the body
will always have the same depends on the dose, or
amount of harm/sickness.
C. Exposure to the hazard
amount entering the
always results in harm. body, and the
D. Fifty percent of the people relationship follows a
will die when exposed to predictable pattern.
0.1mg/kg.
 At very low amounts, there will be no detectable effect of the
chemical. In the midrange of doses, the amount of damage will
increase as the dose increases. At very high doses, a maximum
level of damage is reached.
Problem 8: A family home has a clogged furnace that is producing carbon monoxide, hazardous gas.
Which family member is likely to be harmed the most?

A. Billy, the son who is in the
1st grade
B. Baby Shea, who is going to
be in pre-school next year
C. Karla, the nanny who cares
for the toddler every
weekday morning
D. Ms. Nguyen, the mother
who works at home
E. Mr. Nguyen, the father
who works in the
university
The dose of gas depends on several
factors. 3 that we can estimate from
this case are the length of exposure,
the age of the people exposed, and
the size of the people exposed.
In general, the longer you are
exposed to a chemical, the higher a
dose you will receive.
Responses to hazardous substances
also vary with a person's age and
size. Children may be more affected
than adults because of their smaller
body size and their more rapid cell
growth.
Problem 9: All of the people listed below live in the same house. Who is most likely to experience toxic effects
from secondhand smoke?
A person's health status can affect
A. The grandmother, their response to a hazard.
who is very fit e.g.
B. The mother, who a. someone with asthma, whose
smokes lungs are already experiencing
illness, may be more sensitive
C. The father, who to hazardous gases and
smokes particles in the air.
D. The teenage daughter, b. people with damaged livers
may be less able to biologically
who has asthma
process harmful chemicals and
E. The son, who is in 5th would therefore be more
grade sensitive than someone with a
healthy liver.
Problem 10: There are several ways to control or reduce your exposure to a
hazard. Opening a window in a room full of people who are smoking is an
example of controlling your exposure to environmental tobacco smoke by
___________________________.
A. Treating the One might assume that the
symptoms of the best way to control a hazard is
hazard to remove the source.
B. Diluting the hazard This would certainly work, but
C. Distancing yourself is not always possible.
from the hazard
For example, you may not be
D. Removing the
able to get everyone in the
hazard
room to put out their
cigarettes.
You have several other options for reducing your exposure:
 
1. You could wear protective gear such as a gas mask that would
filter all the bad stuff out of the air before you breathed it into
your lungs.
2. You could stand at the opposite side of the room for the
smokers. As the smoke diffuses through in the room, the air
nearer the smokers will have the highest concentration of
smoke and the air farthest from the smokers will have the
lowest concentration. By distancing yourself from the source
of the hazard, you will reduce your exposure.
3. You could open a window. Fresh air will come in the window
and reduce the concentration of cigarette smoke in the room.
This dilutes the hazard and reduces your exposure.
4. Sometimes when there is not way to avoid exposure, you can
treat the symptoms caused by the hazard so that the effect of
the hazard is reduced.
Problem 11: Which environmental health scientist
would determine ways to prevent and reduce
exposure to secondhand smoke?

A. A toxicologist
B. An epidemiologist
C. An industrial hygienist
D. An occupational and environmental medicine
physician
E. A pharmacologist
Many different types of scientists work in the field of
environmental health sciences. Typically one scientist may be
involved in several different fields:
 
A. Toxicologists study the way in which hazards harm the body.

B. Pharmacologists study the beneficial effects of chemicals.

C. Industrial hygienists study how to stop or prevent exposure to

hazards.

D. Epidemiologists study what health problems occur in groups of

people and investigate the causes.

E. Occupational and Environmental Medicine physicians

diagnose and treat patients exposed to health hazards and in
their work or other environments.
 Any Questions?

SOURCE:
2004. The Biology Project - Chemicals and Human Health. Department of Biochemistry
and Molecular Biophysics, College of Science, University of Arizona.
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/chh/problem_sets/toxicology/toxicology.html