Risk Assesment

Question 1

define toxicity?

Answer 1

inherent ability of a chemical to cause injury to a living system.

Question 2

define food toxicology?

Answer 2

science that establishes basis of judgment regarding the safety of chemicals on a food system.

Question 3

define a hazard

Answer 3

the potential something has to cause you harm

Question 4

define risk

Answer 4

the probability or severity of the effect occuring the the person

Question 5

what is absolute risk?

Answer 5

the probability of developing an adves effect due to exposure. eg working in a factory, 100 exposed, 5 get sick. 5% risk.

Question 6

what is relative risk?

Answer 6

the ratio of risk between exposed and non exposed. eg, as a person not working in the factory, how likely am i to be exposed? or as a person working in the factory, how much more likely am i to get fucked up.

Question 7

define risk assesment?

Answer 7

in simple terms: a process involving identification of hazards and uncertainties and likelihood of adverse outcomes occurring to the person.

Question 8

what are the 4 steps of risk assesment? List, elaborate later.

Answer 8

• Hazard identification: what is the danger
• Hazard characterisation/dose responce assesment: at what dose does the effect happen.
• exposure assesment: who is exposed?
• risk characterisation: put it all together, whats the probability.

Question 9

what is the objective of risk assesment?

Answer 9

• balance risk and benefits
• set safty limits and targerts
• estimate residual risks.

Question 10

Step 1: Elaborate on Hazard identification under these headings:
what is it?
What is the aim?
how is it carried out?
What is the golden standard?

Answer 10

1. hazard ID is the identification of the source of possible risk source. it is a qualitative description of of the nature of these effects/events.
2. to identify the innate adverse toxic effect of the agent and what is the primary hazard of concern.
3. in vitro or invivo
4. the GS is epidemiological studies, kind of. cant exactly probe cause and effect,

Question 11

Why is human epidemiological data not exactly the golden standard?

Answer 11

• hard to obtain
• studies may not be available
• gathering first hand data may take a while
• they can often be incomplete and unreliable (cant do cause and effect)
• usually qualitative data only. hard to get exact hard numbers, which is what you need.

Question 12

who is strong, capable and smart?

Answer 12

you are :3

Question 13

why are in vivo animal studies most commonly used in toxicology?

Answer 13

well controlled and known exposure, easy to see effects.
Note: only applies if the animal has similar physiology to humans, bring in the pigs, get rid of the alligators.

Question 14

Step 2: what is hazard characterisation?

Answer 14

quantitative evaluation of the nature of the health effect of substance in question. must include doese responce assesemnt. ie. if i give an adult 30yo man 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g of coke, how much can he take, when will he die, how much does he need for it to have an effect

Question 15

explain the dose responce relationship(s)

Answer 15

the bigger the dose, the bigger the effect. there is a cap, eventually you get the lethal dose/max effect.

Question 16

explain the intra individual variability of dose responce?

Answer 16

basically, a bell curve. there are some SUPER sensitive people out there (genetically, conditionally eg children and alcohol etc etc) and people who arent as sensitive, and then your average jo in the middle, to whom the dose responce curve applies.

Question 17

what is the dose threshold.

Answer 17

the MINIMUM amount of the thing needed to elicit a responce

Question 18

waht is LD 50?

Answer 18

the dose that killed 50% of animals upon administration.

Question 19

who will pass all her exams?

Answer 19

you will :D

Question 20

what is NOAEL stand for and what does it mean

Answer 20

1. no observed adverse effect level
2. highest exposure level which has no biologically significant increase in the occurance of adverse effect. basically, if 10/1000 people get lung cancer, and the toxin in question increased lung cancer, NOAEL exposure would NOT affect the rate of LC.

Question 21

what does LOAEL stand for and what does that mean?

Answer 21

1. lowest observed adverse effect level.
2. the treshold of effedct. anything lower doesnt cause the bad. anything above causes more bad.

Question 22

step 3: what is exposure assesment?

Answer 22

investigates the frequency, duration and magnitude of exposure.

Question 23

Explain exposure duration in exposure assesment.

Answer 23

the length of time of each exposure.

Question 24

who is a hot piece of ass?

Answer 24

you are :O—– (thats drool)

Question 25

explain exposure frequency in context of exposure assesment

Answer 25

measure of how often exposure occures over a defined period. daily, yearly? eg 5 days a week for years if occupational.

Question 26

explain exposure chronology in context of exposure assesment,

Answer 26

at what life stage was the person exposed? in vitro, while a child. used to investigte specific life stage vs sepcific toxin eg fetal toxicity and pregnant people.

Question 27

explain exposure patterns with context to exposure assesment

Answer 27

reflects on time of day and location relationship between sources of exposure and human activity.

Question 28

define step 4: risk characterisation

Answer 28

the integration of all the info from the prevuous steps to give a number, basically. what is the likelihood of increase in cancer in a population exposed to xyz.
has to have explicit descriptions of the assumbtions and uncertainties created. and give overall confidance.