Toxic Chemical Information Sources

Knowing how to obtain relevant, up-to-date information about the health effects of a chemical is essential for the effective protection of workers and the environment. The way we access information is changing every day and the amount of occupational health and safety information available is forever expanding. Finding information to meet legislative and regulatory requirements, to write a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) or Safety Data Sheet (SDS), to respond to an emergency, to determine the cause of an illness, or to develop a health and safety program can be challenging, overwhelming, and time consuming. Toxicological information and data are of interest to more than workers, toxicologists, industrial hygienists, lawyers, and regulators. The general public is increasingly interested in the health effects of industrial chemicals. Correspondingly, there are many different types of information available to accommodate these diverse needs. Who is doing the research and how the information is going to be used will affect the amount of detail required. For some, knowing that the basic health effects of a particular chemical are respiratory or skin irritation is enough. For others, knowing the quality of the original study or report used to arrive at these conclusions will also be required. For still others, the information will be needed for an emergency so that whatever information is obtained must be gained quickly and be as accurate as possible. This chapter discusses how to locate different types of information on the toxic effects of chemicals, starting with a discussion on how and where to search for information. It will then identify a number of valuable resources that contain specific types of information (e.g., comprehensive reviews, data banks, and fact sheets). Keywords: Bibliographic databases; books; CAS registry numbers; chemical toxicity information; comprehensive reviews; data banks; fact sheets; gateways; Internet; material safety data sheets; original research; organizations; portals; relational databases; resources; safety data sheets; sources; toxicological literature searching; web searching