A Possible Index of Fatal Drug Toxicity in Humans
- 1 July 1983
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Medicine, Science and the Law
- Vol. 23 (3), 193-198
- https://doi.org/10.1177/002580248302300307
Abstract
The ratio of the number of deaths associated with a given drug to the number of prescriptions for that drug provides a measure of fatal toxicity in humans. This index (T) has been obtained for 47 drugs commonly encountered in fatalities in England and Wales. It is shown that T is often closely related to the corresponding fatal toxicity in animals (LD50), and to physico-chemical factors which are known to be correlated with other measures of human drug toxicity. In general, T is a measure of the probability of a fatal outcome following the use of a particular drug.Keywords
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