Short Description
A considerable number of chemicals, including many drugs, are capable of inducing autoimmune-like diseases in man (D’Cruz 2000, 2002; Verdier et al. 1997).
Autoimmunogenic chemicals rarely induce similar clinical adverse effects in test animals and are hardly ever identified in general toxicity testing. Hence, autoimmune-like symptoms often become apparent only after introduction to the market. In combination with the fact that these symptoms can induce very serious or life-threatening conditions, the autoimmunogenicity of chemicals, and drugs in particular, poses a huge problem to certain sectors of society-patients, clinicians, pharmaceutical companies, and governmental agencies. Conceivably, there is an urgent need for screening tests to identify such chemicals.
The main reason for the inability to assess a chemical’s potential to cause autoimmune-like diseases is that the underlying mechanism is very complex, and can involve the interplay of many predisposing...
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References
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Pieters, R. (2014). Tests for Autoimmunity. In: Vohr, HW. (eds) Encyclopedia of Immunotoxicology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27786-3_1458-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27786-3_1458-2
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Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27786-3
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