Deriving allowable daily intakes for systemic toxicants lacking chronic toxicity data

The lack of human toxicological data for most chemical compounds makes it difficult to quickly assess health risks associated with exposure to contaminants at hazardous waste sites. It would therefore be advantageous to have a technique for estimating acceptable daily intakes (ADIs) of potentially toxic substances based on more widely available animal toxicity data. This article focuses on the use of LD 50 data to derive provisional ADIs, and it suggests multiplying oral LD 50 values (expressed in mg/kg of body wt) by a factor in the range of 5 × 10 −6 to 1 × 10 −5 day −1 to convert them to such ADIs. It is emphasized that these interim ADI values are no substitute for toxicity testing, but that such testing would most likely result in higher ADI estimates.