Toxicology and Ecotoxicology in Chemical Safety Assessment

Book Description

The use of chemicals in any workplace in the developed world is governed by stringent health, safety and environmental legislation, and companies spend significant amounts of time and money assessing the risks associated with the handling and use of chemicals. In practice, those risk assessments are generally carried out by a range of competent people, be it the corporate safety manager, the R&D chemist or the manufacturing unit manager. This book will guide those personnel in the understanding, interpretation and application of toxicological and ecotoxicological information, supplied on a material safety data sheet, when planning the safe handling and use of chemicals. This volume is directed at corporate health & safety officers and safety managers; R&D chemists; process chemists and engineers, and manufacturing unit managers & supervisors in the pharmaceutical industry and the bulk, fine and specialty chemicals industries.

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Freshwater Bivalve Ecotoxicology
Jerry L. Farris
Manufacturer: CRC Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 142004284X

Book Description

This book covers the techniques and approaches for assessing suspected contaminant impact upon freshwater bivalves. The editors meet this challenge by incorporating expertise on research topics and management issues from a cross section of active scientists in the field. The resulting array of viewpoints provides a valuable tool drawn from both internal and external peer reviews. They explore current advances in general monitoring of population responses to stressors, fundamental concepts of ecotoxicology specific to burrowing bivalves, and useful insights that offer direction and priority for resolving specific problems challenging protection and conservation efforts.

Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals

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Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals

Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0415275180

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Honey Bees: Estimating the Environmental Impact of Chemicals is an updated account of the different strategies for assessing the ecotoxicity of xenobiotics against these social insects, which play a key role in both ecology and agriculture. In addition to the classical acute laboratory test, semi-field cage tests and full field funnel tests, new tests based mainly on behavioral responses are clearly described for the first time. Information on the direct and indirect effects of radionuclides, heavy metals, pesticides, semi-volatile organic compounds and genetically modified plants on honey bees is also presented.

War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Studies in Environment and History)

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creative synthesis
angels and insects

War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring (Studies in Environment and History)
Edmund Russell
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521790034

Book Description

While cultural and scholarly traditions have led us to believe that war and control of nature are separate, there are many more similarities than most people might suspect. Tracing the history of chemical warfare and pest control, Edmund Russell shows how war and control of nature coevolved. Ideologically, institutionally, and technologically, the paths of chemical warfare and pest control intersected repeatedly in the twentieth century. War and Nature helps us to understand the impact of war on nature and vice versa, as well as the development of total war, and the rise of the modern environmental movement. Edmund Russell is an assistant professor in the Division of Technology, Culture, and Communication in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia. This is his first book.

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creative synthesis.......2003-05-01

In War and Nature Edmund Russell, Associate Professor of Technology, Culture, and Communication at the University of Virginia, cleverly traces the interaction between chemical warfare and pest control from World War I to the Vietnam War. His central thesis is that war and control of nature have coevolved: "the control of nature expanded the scale of war, and war expanded the scale on which people controlled nature" (p. 2). Following up on his dissertation (University of Michigan, 1993), which won the Rachel Carson Prize from the American Society for Environmental History, Russell culled a wide variety of recently declassified U.S. government documents, business publications, and contemporary books and articles. Russell finds that World Wars I and II and the Cold War forged close ties between military and scientific institutions, and efforts to maintain such links became hallmarks of the post-World War II era. Scientifically and technologically, pest control and chemical warfare each created knowledge and tools that reinforced the other (p. 4) For example, on the eve of World War I, there were few U.S. chemical companies. They manufactured primarily low-profit bulk chemicals. In contrast, Germany had the best chemical factories and schools and had the largest output of sophisticated products. Eight German companies made up almost 80 percent of the world's dyes (p. 18). However, the increased use of mustard and chlorine gas in the war boosted the demand by European allies for these chemicals from the United States. The "Chemical Warfare Service" was created within the U.S. Army to employ civilian chemists to conduct research on war gases. This research also stimulated the invention of new insecticides to deal with such menaces as the boll weevil (attacking cotton crops), house fly (spreading typhus), the San Jose scale (damaging fruit trees), and mosquitoes (spreading malaria).
The use of chemicals in warfare is not new. Interestingly, Russell points out that the first recorded use of poison gas was in 428 BC, when Spartans besieging Plataea attempted to kill its defenders by burning wood soaked in pitch and sulfur under city walls (p. 4). However, chemical warfare increased throughout the twentieth century. According to Russell, at least 90,000 people were killed in World War I by gas, and estimated 350,000 were killed by gas in World War II, not including all the victims in Hitler's gas chambers. Even these figures seem low. Russell skillfully shows through cartoons how federal entomologists and chemists used insects in their propaganda as metaphors for human enemies. One cartoon depicts a conversation between two worms, one of them exclaiming: "What! Me sabotage that guy's victory garden? What do you take me for-a Jap? (p. 100)."
The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 sought to exclude gas from warfare and define the rights of combatants. Public outrage at the use of chemicals as weapons of war continued to mount. After World War II, the Chemical Warfare Service and other chemical companies lobbied Congress vigorously, stressing the need to develop war gases as insecticides, for which increased funding was required. Noted chemists testified before Congress, claiming also that chemical and biological warfare was "more humane" than conventional warfare. According to Russell, who interviewed several of these chemists, Chief Chemical Officer William Creasy inanely argued in 1958 that 25,000 American casualties on Iwo Jima could have been avoided had the U.S. military employed chemical weapons (p. 208). Miracle "psychochemicals" were promoted, such as LSD-25 that could temporarily incapacitate troops but not permanently harm them. Russell cites a US Army propaganda film produced in 1958 in which a cat chased and caught a mouse, inhaled an unnamed gas, and then cowered from another mouse (p. 208). This publicity campaign persuaded Pentagon authorities to increase the U.S. Army's budget to $80,000,000 for chemical research.
Research to fight insects increased simultaneously with the development of chemicals to fight humans. As thousands of families moved to the suburbs in the 1950s, gardening became a popular hobby and stimulated the desire for pest control. Pesticide manufacturers such as Du Pont and Dow increased their marketing to this group of consumers, while federal crop dusting programs using DDT were initiated.
Russell shows how Rachel Carson's publication of Silent Spring in 1962 galvanized the American environmental movement, leading eventually to the ban on DDT in 1972. This immediate bestseller detailed the noxious effects of DDT on plants and animals and characterized pest control as a self-defeating form of warfare (p. 229).
Reading this book, one is struck by the immense irony of the twentieth century and the causal interaction of peace and war. Never before have so many human lives been saved (thanks to pesticides killing disease-carrying insects and increasing crop yields) and so many destroyed (mostly due to incendiaries, but also chemical weapons). Americans got better at saving lives partly because they got better at taking them, and vice versa. While War and Nature is almost too dazzling in its rich detail and sometimes a bit careless in its logic (e.g. implying that human beings should not be considered part of nature), the book breaks new ground in its connection of two traditionally disparate fields of inquiry, environmental and military history. It should be required reading in college courses in both security studies and environmental science.---Johanna Granville, Ph.D. (Stanford University)

angels and insects.......2002-10-01

World War I was just the beginning of an ongoing cultural and scientific process in which chemical based weapons were created and marketed for use against human and insect enemies. Russell reminds us that the cultural, institutional, and political evolution of twentieth century science and warfare in the United States began not with the J. Robert Oppenheimer and the physicists of Los Alamos but with chemists like James B. Conant and his colleagues at Harvard and American University, emergent corporations like Dupont and the Hooker Company, and government agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the United States Chemical Warfare Service. With an eye for detail and a witty and readable narrative style, the author assembles scientific papers, declassified governmental and military planning documents, trade journals, and propaganda and advertising literature to reshape our understanding not only of the role of chemistry in warfare, but more importantly the reflexive nature of our understanding and relation to both technology and nature during times of peace.

Toxic Politics: Responding to Chemical Disasters

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A Must Read

Toxic Politics: Responding to Chemical Disasters
Michael R. Reich
Manufacturer: Cornell Univ Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Ecotoxicology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

A Must Read.......2007-05-26

I have loved this book for years and am surprised no one has reviewed it yet. It's an excellent analysis of toxic contamination in the U.S., Italy, and Japan. I use the opening and closing chapters regularly to teach undergraduates about patterns of "privatizing" and "publicizing" that frequently occur surrounding toxic disasters, as well as how "nonissues" can develop into "public issues" and then into "political issues." Having worked with and lived as an activist in communities with toxic dumps, Reich's analysis is telling for a wide range of pollution controversies well beyond the isolated one-time disaster. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in pollution, social movements, and institutional power.

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Chemical Ecotoxicology
JAAKKO PAASIVIRTA
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0873713664

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Applied Ecotoxicology
Jorg Rombke
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1566700701

Book Description

This new book illustrates the complex nature of ecotoxicological issues, using pesticides as an example. It focuses on the assessment and monitoring of the amounts of pollutants in the environment and the subsequent damage. The text provides the basic information and methodology to help the reader determine the extent of ecological damage caused by a given substance. Legislatures in industrialized countries have taken the initiative in dealing with these issues by formulating new priorities for environmental protection. Applied Ecotoxicology describes these regulatory efforts, which are separated by their two distinct objectives: those that seek to expand the scope of protection against the pollutants' negative impacts, and those shifting the level of investigation from the individual to the ecosystem. Pollutants are only one of a number of different environmental factors to which organisms are exposed. Their impact in the field is presented in the context of other forms of human intervention in the environment. The increasing use of pesticides in tropical regions, a growing ecotoxicological concern in these countries, is also discussed.

Introduction to Environmental Toxicology: Impacts of Chemicals upon Ecological Systems

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Outstandingly written and very informative for scientists

Introduction to Environmental Toxicology: Impacts of Chemicals upon Ecological Systems
Wayne G. Landis , and Ming-Ho Yu
Manufacturer: Lewis Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Introduction to Environmental Toxicology focuses on the impacts of chemicals upon ecological systems ranging from the molecular level to the dynamics of ecosystems. This unique book emphasizes the use of toxicity tests and provides important examples. It also details molecular, cellular, and physiological effects. Biodegradation, structure-activity relationships, atmospheric pollutants, and the effects of elemental pollutants on living systems are but a few of the important topics covered in this broad-based text/reference. Environmental toxicology is addressed at the ecosystem level. Significant attention is devoted to examining the difficulties of assessing impacts within ecosystems, reviewing the potential of biomarkers, and noting limits to prediction. Although intended as a text for upper division undergraduates and beginning graduate students, the book will be an excellent reference for anyone in environmental toxicology and chemistry, regulators, risk assessors, environmental consultants, ecologists, and students.

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Outstandingly written and very informative for scientists.......2000-12-28

This is perhaps one of the more intellectual stimulating toxicology books put out for the general public. Landis, unlike many of his modern day contemporaries, literally gives the reader an indepth insight into the discipline of toxicology as related to biology, chemistry, ecology, and general mathematics. Furthermore, the author significantly explains the beneficial use of Risk Assessments and Risk Analysis as related to ecotoxicity and exposure in the environment.

From an environmental science standpoint, the author communicates his ideas and theoretical/scientific idealms well to the reader for he or she to get a thorough understanding. Terms and scientific expressions as related to the field of environmental toxicology are well explained throughout the text.

Book Description

Because earthworms improve soil quality, enhance nutrient release and uptake, and maintain and increase soil aeration and drainage, their use in testing has been central to both soil ecology and ecotoxicological risk assessment. After meeting in 1991 to discuss lab and field testing, these expert authors reconvened in 1997 to update their findings and share new insights about bioavailability and internal load as discriminating factors for assessing environmental impacts.

Book Description

The bioaccumulation of endocrine disruptors, persistent organic chemicals and other compounds of high environmental impact has become of increasing interest in most recent environmental research, risk analysis and toxicology. This volume gives an up-to-date overview and introduces the reader to the new concept of "internal effect concentration" linking bioaccumulation and biomagnification in the food chain to ecotoxicology and risk assessment.

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