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Toxicological Information

Information concerning the hazardous chemical's toxicity is listed in this section. However, this information can be listed in other sections of the MSDS like the Health Hazard and First Aid section. This information reflects animal testing, and if known, human data if accidental human poisoning occurred and the amounts of exposure are known. This toxicity data is mainly intended for medical professionals, occupational health and safety professionals, and toxicologist.

The data may includes acute, subchronic and chronic exposures through various routes, (e.g., inhalation [inhal], ingestion [oral], intraperitoneal [ipr], subcutaneous [scu]). LD50 (lethal dose that kills 50% of lab animals expressed in milligrams per kilograms) is used to represent oral, ipr, scu exposures. LC50 (lethal concentration in air of a substance that kills 50% of lab animals) is used to express inhalation exposures. Also LDLo and LCLo are sometimes listed and these values depict the lowest dose or concentration known to have cause death in a lab animal. The lab animals can include rats, mice, rabbit, and guinea pigs.

The toxicity section of Methylene chloride MSDS if found in the Health Hazard Data section, while Bromine MSDS has its own Tocicity section.

If you checked the MSDSs carefully, you saw that bromine listed inhal-human LCLo as 1000 ppm. This tells you that death can occur with one exposure of 1000 ppm. The oral-human LDLo is 14mg/kg. This means for an average size person as little as 1.3 grams (14 mg X 90 kg) can be lethal is swallowed.

The toxicity section also describe some information in layman's terms, (for example, if the chemical is a carcinogen or corrosive to the skin). The information in this section is valuable in evaluating the potential health risks involved in handling the hazardous material. In most cases, human evidence of health effects in exposed populations is not available so professionals must rely of data collected from lab animal exposures.