Fundamental flaws of hormesis for public health decisions.(Commentary) From: Environmental Health Perspectives | Date: October 1, 2005| Author: Thayer, Kristina A.; Melnick, Ronald; Burns, Kathy; Davis, Devra; Huff, James | COPYRIGHT 2005 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

Hormesis (defined operationally as low-dose stimulation, high-dose inhibition) is often used to promote the notion that while high-level exposures to toxic chemicals could be detrimental to human health, low-level exposures would be beneficial. Some proponents claim hormesis is an adaptive, generalizable phenomenon and argue that the default assumption for risk assessments should be that toxic chemicals induce stimulatory (i.e., "beneficial") effects at low exposures. In many cases...