Kostas: > it's been a while since i used my agronomist knowledge...herer it goes > - LD50 means dose that gives you a fifty/fifty percent to live or die (in case you didn't know) almost Kosats ;-) it's actually the dose which kills 50% of a population of test animals. Close to the same thing but not .. there are other LD ratings, but low or high LD's (like LD100) are largely useless as some individuals are either extremely susceptible or tolerant and that can sway the figures toward unrealistic numbers. Frequently LD's are based on rat populations which is also a problem as rat physiology is somewhat different to humans.. an example, the funnel web spider in Oz is completely harmless to almost all mamals, except humans and chimps, where it is extremely lethal - expressing an LD50 based on rat populations in this instance would offer no indication as to the lethality to us. > - that dose is body weight depended...more weight means more resistance, it's actually a weight per kilo of body weight and is supposed to offer the ability to extrapolate from the figure any body mass, ie an LD 50 of 5mg/kg means a 10kg person requires 50mg while a 100kg person needs 500mg. >but things change when body fat is put in the equation. fat generally absorbs and keeps the substances, so it takes alot more for the same effect, but being a >storage point we start discussing long term effects such as accumulated fatal dosage not always, but certainly true for heavy metals an a lot of organic pesticides. > - sometimes pesticides, insectides and especially fungisides are way less harmfull than the diluter, carrier, and all the rest substances are in the product....for example, some pyrethrines (deltamethrine) (whatever substance ends in -thrin in the household insecticides) are 7 times LESS lethal than table salt..it takes pounds of the pyrethrine to kill you, but by that time you'll be long filled up and permanently fixed by whatever else is in the product there was an instance of someone trying to top themselves with triforene, a common fungicide - the solvent is ethanol so all he did was succede in giving himself a bad hangover the next day. karl
