Review : Problems in the Assessment of Health Risks from Low Levels of Indoor Air Pollutants

Abstract

Animal toxicity studies are far from ideal as a method to enable us to assess possible human health hazards from enviromental pollutants since such pol lutants are usually present in very low concentrations and in complex mixtures which vary widely from time to time. Human studies are in general limited to epidemiological techniques for ethical reasons and they are often inadequate for the detection of small changes in the frequency of common diseases with multifactorial causes. Regulators therefore have a limited scientific resource as a background to the preparation of guidelines and legislation.