Toxicity of binary mixtures of reactive toxicants

Abstract

This study evaluated the toxicity of binary mixtures of reactive toxicants using the Microtox test. Greater than additive effects were quite frequently observed (18%) among chemicals with different mechanisms of toxicity, and some of them were severely synergistic. The concentration-addition model, therefore, may not be appropriate for estimating the multiple toxicity of mixtures containing reactive toxicants. The slope of a chemical's concentration-response curve was found to play an important role in determining the mode of joint actions, which could be related to the complex joint action identified earlier. The results of this study have been summarized into several relationships that can be used to estimate the potential risks for mixtures with unknown toxicity. (C) 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.