ENVS 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Nail Polish, Chronic Toxicity, Malaria

• School: SJSU
• Department: Environmental Studies, Department of
• Course: ENVS 110
• Professor: Professor

Document Summary

Two indicators: life expectancy: how long people are expected to live, infant mortality: how many children die before age of 1 year. Vary greatly between countries: developed countries, developing countries. Environmental pollution and disease: pathways of pollution, often difficult to link pollutants to their effects on people, persistence, bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Toxicity: measure of how harmful a substance is in causing injury, illness, or death to living organisms. Factors affecting toxicity: persistence: how long before it breaks down, bioaccumulation: toxin not metabolized or excreted usually stored in fatty tissue, biomagnification: the increased concentration of toxic chemicals as they are passed through food chain. Biomagnification of ddt caused decline in bald eagle reproduction. Toxicology: acute toxicity: adverse effects occur within a short period after exposure to toxin, chronic toxicity: adverse effects occur some time after exposure, or after prolonged exposure to toxin. Illustrates the effect of different doses on a population: threshold level, maximum dose with no measurable effects.