At the end of a long day, you might sit down with friends or family to eat a bowl of hot noodle soup. A savory scent fills the air as you bring the broth to your lips. Whether that meal is homemade udon or canned chicken noodle soup, you will also unwittingly swallow chemicals that […]
Usually, it’s pretty easy to run some tests to find what it takes to kill 50% of the test mice (LD50), but that value will only give you a very rough estimate, because toxicology is hard. Besides, you’re not really trying to just prevent 50% humans from getting killed. You don’t want people to get sick either.
Many chemicals also have limits that are considered safe in an occupational exposure setting. If it says that you can safely be exposed to a specific concentration for 8 hours, it’s not the same as having that same chemical in your food for 20 years.
Studying acute toxicity and mortality is much easier than studying chronic toxicity and illness. We also tend to use mice instead of humans in these tests, which opens another can of worms. Figuring out what’s safe for you to eat for the rest of your life is just next level stuff, which is why we usually don’t know how much is still safe.
With many chemicals, we just don’t know.
Usually, it’s pretty easy to run some tests to find what it takes to kill 50% of the test mice (LD50), but that value will only give you a very rough estimate, because toxicology is hard. Besides, you’re not really trying to just prevent 50% humans from getting killed. You don’t want people to get sick either.
Many chemicals also have limits that are considered safe in an occupational exposure setting. If it says that you can safely be exposed to a specific concentration for 8 hours, it’s not the same as having that same chemical in your food for 20 years.
Studying acute toxicity and mortality is much easier than studying chronic toxicity and illness. We also tend to use mice instead of humans in these tests, which opens another can of worms. Figuring out what’s safe for you to eat for the rest of your life is just next level stuff, which is why we usually don’t know how much is still safe.