Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
in this topic to put the animal studies on methanol into some perspective
for humans.
As far as animal testing is concerned, a special mention of very large
research program on methanol toxicity conducted by the New Energy
Development Origination (NEDO) of Japan is warranted. NEDO was
evaluating methanol as a potential fuel for power stations. This program
was a very large undertaking. Unfortunately, the results of these studies
were never published by NEDO. The first phase of the research was
made available in English in a 90-page summary (NEDO, 1986). The
research in monkeys, rats, and mice were made available in the second
English summary of 300 pages (NEDO, 1987). There is a great deal of
information provided in these summaries as much as you would find in
many published papers and these summaries are the basis of the NEDO
data presented below.
The NEDO acute inhalation and subacute inhalation studies in
monkeys, as well as the chronic inhalation studies in monkeys, rats,
and mice are reviewed in this chapter. Other NEDO studies are
discussed in other chapters (Chapters 5, 7, and 8) in this topic. The
NEDO inhalation carcinogenicity studies in rats and mice are reviewed
in Chapter 8 on cancer, while the NEDO intraperitoneal studies on
metabolism in rats and monkeys are reviewed in Chapter 7 on metabo-
lism in this topic. The NEDO inhalation studies of teratology in rats and
the two-generation study in rats are reviewed in Chapter 5 on develop-
mental and reproductive effects. The NEDO studies on environmental
fate are presented in Chapter 2.
Studies on toxicity in aquatic species are also presented in this chapter.
4.2 ACUTE TOXICITY
4.2.1 Oral
The most common animal toxicity available on most chemicals is oral
acute toxicity (LD
50
). There are numerous acute oral studies on
methanol; some going back more than 75 years. In many of the early
studies, the number of animals, sex, clinical signs, and age are not given.
