The role of cellular and molecular studies in evaluation of health effects from combined radiation and chemical exposures

Additive models are currently used to predict risks following exposure to multiple agents or complex mixtures. Use of these models is questioned because different methods are used to derive risks for chemical and physical agents depending on the database used. Risks for the induction of cancer from radiation are based on large sets of human data, while standards are set for most chemical carcinogens using information derived from animal studies. However, it is not, from a scientific point of view, appropriate to add risks from physical and chemical agents to derive potential health impact from combined exposures. The range of safety factors built into the estimates, the large differences in the data sets used to evaluate and establish standards, and the differences in the basic philosophy for deriving risks for physical and chemical agents make the additive model unacceptable for estimating risks from combined exposures. To understand the potential health impacts from environmental exposure, it is important (1) to consider how risks were derived and (2) to determine if interactions exist between damage induced by the different agents to ensure that additive assumptions are valid. This presentation discusses a number of these safety factors for specific chemicals.