What is the basis of valid toxic risk assessment for humans?
Resorting to animals for assessing toxic risks in humans goes back to medieval times, as it was then the only way to get a vague indication of the risk. At present however, the scientific revolution provides us with far more reliable means for toxic risk assessment. This science-based toxicology is founded on two basic principles : First, toxicology is the science of life in an environment of toxic products (xenobiotics). Over the past half-century, biology has made unprecedented leaps, moving away from empiricism and towards science, and even almost exact science when it comes to cellular and molecular biology. Toxicology can benefit from the concepts, methods and tools developed in such modern biology and thereby achieve also the status of an almost exact science. Second, the cell is where life starts. It is therefore not surprising (and fully supported by modern biology) that the answers to practically all biological problems must first be sought at the level of the cell. Human dise
