| Environmental Health Issues Seishiro Hirano1 and Kazuo T. Suzuki2 1Regional Environment Division, National Institute for Environmental
Studies, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; 2Faculty of Pharmaceutical
Sciences, Chiba University, Inage, Chiba, Japan Abstract
For the past three decades, most attention in heavy metal toxicology has been paid to cadmium, mercury, lead, chromium, nickel, vanadium, and tin because these metals widely polluted the environment. However, with the development of new materials in the last decade, the need for toxicological studies on those new materials has been increasing. A group of rare earths (RE) is a good example. Although some RE have been used for superconductors, plastic magnets, and ceramics, few toxicological data are available compared to other heavy metals described above. Because chemical properties of RE are very similar, it is plausible that their binding affinities to biomolecules, metabolism, and toxicity in the living system are also very similar. In this report, we present an overview of the metabolism and health hazards of RE and related compounds, including our recent studies. -- Environ Health Perspect 104(Suppl 1) :00-00 (1996) Key words: rare earth, lanthanoid, scandium, yttrium, exposure, distribution, retention, clearance, metabolism, toxicity, health hazard
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