Toxicity of Rubber Accelerators - What is LD 50?

Manufacturer: When referring to the toxicity information of the Material Safety Data Sheets of the accelerators for our latex compounds, we always come across the terms "Acute Oral LD50 (mg/kg)" or "Acute Dermal LD50 (mg/kg)". What do these mean?

John Woon (Senior Latex Consultant): Simple. LD stands for "Lethal Dosage" or "Lethal Dose". LD 50 means the amount of the chemical concerned (rubber accelerators in your case)when introduced to the test animals (rats, mice, hamsters, guinea-pigs, rabbits etc), that causes 50% of the animals to die. If the chemical is given to the animals through the mouth, it is known as "Acute Oral" whereas if it is given by applying to the skin, it is referred to as "Acute Dermal". The result refers to mg of the chemicals per kg of the animal's body weight.

It goes without saying that the lower the figure, the more toxic is the chemical. To give you an idea, 1 to 50 gm/kg infers a very high toxicity while 5000 to 15,000 gm/kg means that chemical is practically non-toxic or harmless.

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