Journal of Toxicological Studies

The environment is everything that surrounds us. The environment is subject to constant changes that can be caused by natural factors such as soil erosion, earthquakes, floods, fires, and anthropogenic factors such as urbanization, industry, traffic, population growth, the accumulation of waste, and others. Due to the ubiquitous interaction of man in the environment, most often without respecting the natural rhythm in nature, man changes the environment with a harmful effect on biological and landscape diversity and often with negative consequences for human health and quality of life. By neglecting the environment in favor of economic growth and development, man has changed the environment more than any other biological species in a relatively short time with such irresponsible behavior. The consequences of such actions are unsustainable and call into question the future of that same environment. Therefore, protecting and preserving the environment in all spheres of life and work on the basis of sustainability becomes the biggest challenge for modern man and society as a whole.

The therapeutic options for coronal virus infections are limited. As SARS-CoV-2 directly targets the lungs and causes lung damage, treatment of COVID-19 with inhalants may offer more advantages over oral administration. Inhaled drug delivery provides a higher drug concentration in the target organ, where SARS-CoV-2 proliferates. In this study, we evaluated the potential systemic toxicity, relevant target organ toxicity, and toxicokinetics of Airnecflu^®, Ultrapure, and Potent Tannic Acid (UPPTA) by metered-dose inhaler (MDI) inhalation to rodent and canine species once a day for 2 consecutive weeks. We further investigated the reversibility of the toxicity following a 3-week recovery period. No mortality related to the test article was observed in all the dose groups. Neither abnormalities related to the test article nor toxicologically significant changes were observed in both rodent and canine studies. In pathological examination, alveolar macrophage aggregation, perivascular/interstitial/alveolar inflammatory cell infiltration, and alveolar/bronchial epithelium hyperplasia were noted in the lung with bronchi involvement. However, after a 3-week recovery period, a substantial recovery was observed. There is limited systemic exposure to the inhalation administration. Therefore, inhalation of Airnecflu^® UPPTA is safe to administer for respiratory disorders like COVID-19.

Water pollution by the direct discharge of pollutants (fertilizers, pesticides, heavy metals, etc.) into the river without any pretreatment has become a severe environmental/health hazard. Organochlorine pesticides have extensively been used from the 1940s to 1980 as insecticides in agriculture, weedicides, herbicides, etc. Lindane, an organochlorine pesticide, contributes to bioaccumulation in aquatic organisms and biomagnification in the food chain due to its hydrophobic chemical nature and environmentally persistent property with a very slow rate of degradation. Nanotechnology has proven to be very efficient in removing pollutants. Nanomaterials with unique physical and chemical properties have become a tool for toxicant eradication. Some of the properties of nanomaterials, like high reactivity, adhesion, reflectance, surface plasmon resonance to detect toxic materials, quantum effect in which there is no resistance faced by charged particles, small size, and large surface area to volume, enable them to adsorb many toxicants on their surface, thereby assisting in detoxification and removal of pollutants from water. Some examples include the application of nano-zerovalent iron in the oxidation of groundwater, the reusability of photocatalytic membranes, and many more. This review article presents an updated account of some techniques for eradicating lindane from the aqueous medium.

Toxicology has extensively evolved with the study of how external agents impact living organisms. This manuscript examines the exposome, a paradigm representing all environmental exposures a human encounter from conception onward, introducing a holistic approach to understanding these effects on health. First coined by Dr. Christopher Wild in 2005, recent interpretations by Miller and Jones emphasize not only the environmental factors but also behavioral influences, internal biochemical processes, and the implications of the human microbiome. These augmentations underscore the body’s dynamic responses and continuous adjustments to external challenges. Traditional toxicology, which primarily focused on singular compounds, often overlooked intricate interplays between multifaceted exposures; the exposome aims to bridge this gap. To analyze the vast spectrum of lifetime exposures, various state-of-the-art techniques are in use, such as untargeted high-resolution mass spectrometry, biobanking, biomonitoring, and diverse omics approaches (metabolomics, adductomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics). These methods empower scientists to uncover unknown environmental risks, offering insights into the complex nexus between external exposures and health outcomes.

Whether openly stated or not by the authors of nearly all ecotoxicology studies published in the peer-reviewed literature, the studies are conducted with the thinking that the furnished information is valuable for the field of ecological risk assessment. Reasonably too, those reading these published works share the same sentiment. These situations are unfortunate, for a closer inspection of the research conducted reveals that commonly, one or more study aspects render the data generated to be not utilizable for ecological risk assessment purposes. Some frequently encountered complications include using test species that are never assessed for health effects in the wild, the mode of chemical dosing deviating radically from the manner in which actual chemical exposures occur, and lacking an assessment methodology for expressing health impacts. Because ecotoxicological investigation often does not align with the applied-science needs of ecological risk assessment, this article wonders why the studies proceed. Moreover, this article recommends that authors caution their readership about the limited or lacking utility of the research they describe in the area of fostering assistance and embellishment to ecological assessment science.