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Issue 23
7th
December 2009
C&I Magazine
C&I MagazineThe leading source of news and opinion in the arena of chemical technology
Cover Story
Top science stories in 2009
Cath O’Driscoll reviews some of the major chemical
science highlights making the news in 2009
News
Patrick Walter,
07/12/2009
As the market begins to pick up again,
businesses are looking for good deals
in the chemical industry.
Patrick Walter,
07/12/2009
The amount of money the EU’s top
businesses spent on R&D in 2008
continued to grow, despite the
recession, with research growth
outstripping economic rivals
Japan and the US.
Features
Neil Eisberg,
07/12/2009
Even producers of synthetic agrochemicals are moving into biological
pesticides, using plant oils and other naturally occurring chemicals.
Neil Eisberg reports on developments discussed at the fall meeting
of the American Chemical Society in Washington, DC
Neil Eisberg,
07/12/2009
Bayer MaterialScience chairman Patrick Thomas
talks to Neil Eisberg about the trends that are
affecting the automotive sector and the
challenges for material suppliers
Editor's Blog
Dose of poison
Agree or disagree? Post your views below
According to Paracelsus, ‘The dose makes the poison’; in other words, what matters is not so much the substance but how much of it is present. In modern usage, international regulators and scientific authorities have interpreted this by assigning to different chemicals so-called threshold values related to their observed or projected toxicities, below which doses we are led to believe they may be safely used and applied. LD50 values, at which concentration of substance half of the cells in a population will die, are another measure adopted to instil confidence that we have some handle on safety.
But can we be sure that staying below the recommended levels will keep us safe from adverse effects? With so many chemicals now circulating in the environment, is it wise to simply assume we are safe below a pre-assigned dose of any one of these without taking account of potential interactions with others?