Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 22, 2026

Screening for Endocrine Activity in Water Using Commercially-available In Vitro Transactivation Bioassays
Published on: December 4, 2016
Will biomonitoring change how we regulate toxic chemicals?
Richard Jackson1, Paul Locke, Jim Pirkle
1National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Abstract:
Biomonitoring is the assessment of human exposure to environmental chemicals by measuring the chemicals or their metabolites in human specimens such as blood, urine, saliva, or tissue. It has become a powerful public health tool. This article discusses the practical application of biomonitoring to address a public health problem in a state, to explain how biomonitoring differs from predicting exposure through environmental monitoring, to describe the influence biomonitoring has had on promulgating regulations aimed at protecting public health, and to discuss the position biomonitoring holds in the legal landscape as well as its promise in forging laws that will regulate toxic chemicals more effectively.
Related Concept Videos
Drug Regulation
Types of Toxins
Air pollutants, primarily gases, pose significant threats to respiratory health, leading to conditions like hypoxia, lung cancer, and in extreme cases, death.
Environmental pollutants like...
Toxic Reactions: Overview
Toxicity falls into two primary categories: local and systemic.
Local toxicity appears at the exposure site, such as protein denaturation caused by caustic substances.
In contrast, systemic toxicity requires the toxic agent's absorption and distribution,...
Bioactivation and Tissue Toxicity
Toxicokinetics: Overview
Toxicity Testing in Animals

