Toxic or toxicity is the degree of effectiveness that certain substances possess, either due to their composition or what they produce. It is a measurement that is used to know what the toxic level that certain fluids have and that affect the body as a whole.
Toxicology is the specialty in charge of analyzing certain poisons or polluting substances. It is very common for this branch to classify toxic entities into three:
- Chemical substances that can be organic, like the venom of some snakes, or inorganic, like heavy metals or fungi.
- Physical entities, such as X-rays.
- Biological toxicity that are caused by viruses or bacteria.
For an element to be toxic depends on multiple factors, such as the time of exposure to the substance in question, as well as the number of times it has been exposed and the route of ingestion or administration. It is said that there is exposure to toxic substances when a single contact can cause severe harm to the individual, while chronic exposure occurs when it involves a toxin that affects the person for an indeterminate time.
Está comprobado que manipular sustancias de alta toxicidad puede provocar un riesgo para la salud del individuo y para el medio ambiente. Es por tal motivo que existen diversos protocolos de seguridad que resguardan a los trabajadores en contacto con dichas sustancias y preservan la vida. En los países de Europa, existe el REACH, el cual es un sistema de registro, evaluación, autorización y restricción de sustancias químicas, el cual busca dar a conocer cuál es la toxicidad de los fluidos, así como proteger a los ciudadanos de los compuestos peligrosos, fomentando la innovación para el desarrollo de sustancias más seguras para todos.
On the other hand, there are transgenic foods that are products with some type of ingredient extracted from a gene from another species, this can be done thanks to the discoveries of biotechnology and whose objective is to provide the final product with a characteristic that it does not have. A clear example is in the case of transgenic plants, since they are modified in order to prepare them and more firmly resist pests or any other complication that could threaten them.
