What is toxicity?

What is toxicity?

• A. Ability to cause short-term or long-term injury
• B. Exposure
• C. Risk
• D. Potency

Answer: (A)

Toxicity is the inherent ability of a chemical to cause harm to a living being, whether the effects show up quickly after a single exposure (acute) or after long-term, repeated exposure (chronic). It’s a property of the substance itself, not something that happens unless there’s exposure. In practice, actual harm depends on exposure—how much, how often, and how the chemical enters the body—but toxicity is about the potential to cause injury. Exposure means contact with the chemical, which is necessary for harm but does not define toxicity itself. Risk combines toxicity with the likelihood of exposure to determine the chance of harm. Potency describes how strong an effect is at a given dose, which is related to toxicity but is not the full concept on its own.

Toxicity is the inherent ability of a chemical to cause harm to a living being, whether the effects show up quickly after a single exposure (acute) or after long-term, repeated exposure (chronic). It’s a property of the substance itself, not something that happens unless there’s exposure. In practice, actual harm depends on exposure—how much, how often, and how the chemical enters the body—but toxicity is about the potential to cause injury.

Exposure means contact with the chemical, which is necessary for harm but does not define toxicity itself. Risk combines toxicity with the likelihood of exposure to determine the chance of harm. Potency describes how strong an effect is at a given dose, which is related to toxicity but is not the full concept on its own.