RT Journal Article
T1 The under-reported role of toxic substance exposures in the COVID-19 pandemic.
A1 Kostoff, Ronald N
A1 Briggs, Michael B
A1 Porter, Alan L
A1 Hernández, Antonio F
A1 Abdollahi, Mohammad
A1 Aschner, Michael
A1 Tsatsakis, Aristidis
K1 COVID-19
K1 Contributing factors
K1 Immune system
K1 Pandemic
K1 SARS-CoV-2
K1 Toxic mixture
AB Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and previous pandemics have been viewed almost exclusively as virology problems, with toxicology problems mostly being ignored. This perspective is not supported by the evolution of COVID-19, where the impact of real-life exposures to multiple toxic stressors degrading the immune system is followed by the SARS-CoV-2 virus exploiting the degraded immune system to trigger a chain of events ultimately leading to COVID-19. This immune system degradation from multiple toxic stressors (chemical, physical, biological, psychosocial stressors) means that attribution of serious consequences from COVID-19 should be made to the virus-toxic stressors nexus, not to any of the nexus constituents in isolation. The leading toxic stressors (identified in this study as contributing to COVID-19) are pervasive, contributing to myriad chronic diseases as well as immune system degradation. They increase the likelihood for comorbidities and mortality associated with COVID-19. For the short-term, tactical/reactive virology-focused treatments are of higher priority than strategic/proactive toxicology-focused treatments, although both could be implemented in parallel to reinforce each other. However, for long-term pandemic prevention, toxicology-based approaches should be given higher priority than virology-based approaches. Since current COVID-19 treatments globally ignore the toxicology component almost completely, only limited benefits can be expected from these treatments.
YR 2020
FD 2020-08-14
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10668/16113
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10668/16113
LA en
DS RISalud
RD Apr 7, 2025