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Who is a toxicologist and how is s/he different than my medical doctor?

by
Michael Dourson, PhD, DABT, FATS, FSRA 
and
Bernard Gadagbui, MS, PhD, DABT, ERT

Toxicology, the study of poisons, is often thought of as a new discipline. It’s not. It has been around as long as people have been trying out different types of food, and using the occasional poisonous plant, or animal, to dispatch a rival. Toxicology today is more disciplined, with scientists and medical doctors studying various ways the plethora of chemicals to which we are daily exposed to can either be of use, not of use, or downright dangerous. However, even sometimes very dangerous chemicals can otherwise be useful (think botox here, https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=7&v=fFvYUdljVK0&feature=emb_logo). If you want to get a sense of toxicology that is readily understandable, here are 3 sets of facts that can be used around the proverbial office water cooler, or at your next party, should the conversation need a new direction:

 

Life is chemistry. We are exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals every day. A cup of coffee has about a 1000 chemicals. Most garden vegetables have just as many, including many natural pesticides like solanine found in potatoes at high concentrations in all green parts (but even in the potato we eat at a safe level). We could go on and on and…

All chemicals are toxic at some level. Yes, even water. Drink too much and it will kill you. Drink a little bit less and it will disrupt your endocrine system, specifically the hormones associated with your kidneys and adrenal glands.

All chemicals have a safe dose if they do not cause cancer or virtually safe dose if they cause cancer. Yes, they do! It is the dose that makes any chemical a poison. Even a very toxic chemical like arsenic, which has dispatched more than one famous person (Napoleon perhaps?), has a level below which folks do not worry about. Good thing too since arsenic is a naturally occurring element that can be found in nearly all water and food we eat daily if one looks closely enough.

 

So, what do toxicologists do every day? Well, like many occupations, toxicology has a number of sub-disciplines. The one we deal with on a daily basis is human health risk assessment and the related area of regulations. This area is likely to be one in which you are most familiar, since fear of chemicals is prevalent in today’s social media and chemicals are often written up in mainstream news outlets in negative terms. Most of these stories are short on the science and long on the scare, so beware and check the backgrounds of the author and those s/he quotes before you start believing anything.

 

Toxicologists adept at risk assessment and regulation can be found in government, industry, consulting and, to a much lesser extent, academic and NGO organizations. Sections of scientific organizations are even devoted to risk assessment and regulation. On a daily basis, these toxicologists review studies done on particular chemicals and mixtures to determine safe levels of exposure.

 

Other areas of toxicology will likely not surprise you. Some toxicologists conduct chemical experiments on animals or cell cultures to determine the level at which effects occur. Some study the structure of a chemical and compare it to chemicals that have similar structures for insights. Some extract natural chemicals from plants and animals looking to make new drugs or other useful chemicals. And all of this and other related work necessitate advanced training in biology, chemistry, physiology and pathology and other disciplines, often ending up with conferral of a masters or doctorate in toxicology.

 

So, where does your medical doctor fit in? Well, some of the most famous toxicologists are also medical doctors, and so the degree, either an MD or PhD is really not as important in determining whether someone is a toxicologist as the underlying work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doull_(toxicologist). However, a useful distinction is that a medical doctor is often focused on your health and will get you into a hospital if this is needed. A doctor of toxicology is concerned with preventing ill health from chemical exposure—we try to keep you out of the hospital. Another useful way to look at toxicology is that it is preventive medicine. We are trying to lessen the workload of our medical doctor colleagues by finding ways for you to avoid disease.

 

So, next time you read a social media post or newspaper article and have a question, send us a note, ask another toxicologist for some help, or go to one of these websites to check out relevant information:

https://www.acsh.org,

https://tera.org,

https://tera.org/Alliance%20for%20Risk/index.htm,

http://toxedfoundation.org,

https://www.toxicology.org.

 

 

Email dourson@tera.org; gadagbui@tera.org
Twitter.com/mdourson
Phone 513.542.7475 Ext: 105; 513.542.7475 Ext: 104
Mobile Phone 513.543.2892; 513.313.3160 

Questions to consider are: How many of the sources are from scientists? How many of these scientists are toxicologists? How many of these toxicologists, if any, are board-certified? 

 

The Society of Toxicology’s specialty sections for Regulatory and Safety Evaluation and Risk Assessment are two prime examples.

 

 

 

WEEL OEL

Occupational Exposure Limits (OELs) are designed to safeguard the health of healthy workers during their careers. These limits are based on the assumption of repeated daily exposure throughout a working lifetime, typically averaged over an 8-hour workday. Their purpose is to prevent both immediate (acute) and long-term (chronic) health issues arising from workplace exposures. It’s important to note that OELs are not intended for the general public, which includes vulnerable groups like infants, the elderly, and those with pre-existing health conditions.

Workplace Environmental Exposure Levels (WEELs) are health-based guidelines for chemical hazards in the workplace. These values represent air concentrations believed to protect the majority of workers from negative health effects resulting from occupational chemical exposure.

The WEEL Process
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The development of new or revision of existing WEELs is typically assigned to voluntarily designated subcommittees. A subcommittee usually comprises 3 – 4 members from the WEEL Committee. New WEELs are developed using the OARS-WEEL administrative standard operating procedure (SOP), while existing WEELs are usually revised every 10 years, unless the availability of significant new data which may impact the existing WEEL value compels the committee to make a revision sooner. The OARS-WEEL SOP contains procedures and guidelines governing conflicts of interest, draft document preparation, literature searches, draft document review, balloting process, post-ballot WEEL documentation quality assurance scientific review, and publication.

Once a subcommittee has prepared a draft WEEL document, a review of the draft is scheduled for the next available Committee meeting. The WEEL Committee members are expected to have reviewed all such drafts prior to the meeting. If no major changes are necessary to a draft, the attending Committee membership may, by a simple majority, approve the WEEL for balloting. Alternatively, the Committee may direct the subcommittee to revise the WEEL and present it for further discussion at a future meeting. If a ballot is not approved by a two-thirds majority of non-abstaining Committee members, it is discussed at the next Committee meeting to determine the appropriate course of action. Once the WEEL is approved by a two-thirds majority of non-abstaining Committee members, copies of ballot comments are forwarded to the designated subcommittee and all substantive comments must be addressed in the final draft. If resolution of a substantive comment results in a change to the WEEL value or a change in the basis for the value, the draft must be re-balloted.

Once all comments have been addressed on a successfully balloted draft, document formatting and editorial review are performed by TERA, before the draft WEEL document is made available for public comment (usually for a period of 30 days but may be extended if the need arises). After the public comment period has elapsed, comments are addressed by the subcommittee responsible for that specific draft, after which the WEEL documentation is submitted to Toxicology and Industrial Health (TIH), a peer-reviewed medical journal that covers research in the fields of occupational health and toxicology, for publication. A thorough review of the galley proof by the scientific content quality coordinator at TERA, and proofreaders and editors at TIH is the penultimate step before eventual publication of the WEEL documentation.

The WEEL Committee

The OARS-WEEL Committee is composed of volunteer experts specializing in the scientific determination of occupational exposure levels. This committee actively seeks a balanced representation of professionals from toxicology and industrial hygiene, drawing upon a diverse range of experience from industry, government, academia, and consulting. Importantly, each member contributes to the Committee based on their individual expertise and not as an official representative of their respective employer, organization, or agency.