TY - JOUR
T1 - The under-reported role of toxic substance exposures in the COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Kostoff, Ronald N.
AU - Briggs, Michael B.
AU - Porter, Alan L.
AU - Hernández, Antonio F.
AU - Abdollahi, Mohammad
AU - Aschner, Michael
AU - Tsatsakis, Aristidis
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - 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.
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.
KW - COVID-19
KW - Contributing factors
KW - Immune system
KW - Pandemic
KW - SARS-CoV-2
KW - Toxic mixture
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U2 - 10.1016/j.fct.2020.111687
DO - 10.1016/j.fct.2020.111687
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32805343
AN - SCOPUS:85090207851
SN - 0278-6915
VL - 145
JO - Food and Chemical Toxicology
JF - Food and Chemical Toxicology
M1 - 111687
ER -