Environmental Risk Assessment, Secondary Poisoning

Secondary poisoning is an intoxication related to the consumption of, or contact with, a poisoned organism. Secondary poisoning for pesticides and particularly for rodenticides was a key element already in the 1960s, following the observations of domestic and wild animals poisoned through the consumption of the intentionally poisoned rodents. In the Environmental Risk Assessment arena, the term secondary poisoning has been extended to the assessment of chemical substances with potential to bioaccumulate through the food chain. The larger experience is related to the bioaccumulation and biomagnification in aquatic food chains, e.g., based on simplistic low-tier assessments related to the bioconcentration factor. More complex relationships usually require high-tier risk assessment approaches.