They are essential for documenting exposure-response relationships, specificity and potency toward the molecular target, untoward effects, and therapeutic applications.
This patchwork of methods underscores the need for a more unified approach for documenting exposures in a variety of diverse environments.
Researchers have explored its use as a monitor for therapeutic drug levels, with mixed results (Madsen et al. 2004; Miles et al. 2003; Shiran et al. 2005) as well as for documenting exposures to lead, pesticides, and cigarette smoke (Denovan et al. 2000; Lu et al. 2003; Timchalk et al. 2004, 2006; Woodward et al. 2005).
Among 199 patients with available antiviral treatment information, specifically for oseltamivir use, none had documented exposure to the virus before specimen collection.
For instance, it was assumed there was no prior infection before the documented exposure to active disease or outbreak.
Numerous authors have documented exposure to tobacco and/or alcohol as the main risk factors for laryngeal cancer.
Although the potential for relatively high exposure to pesticides in agricultural women compared with the general population has been documented, exposure characterization has been limited.
For nonpersistent organic chemicals, increased reliance is needed on questionnaires and environmental samples to document exposure.
Many characteristics of farmworkers their number, mobility, language, education present clear challenges for documenting pesticide exposure in this population.
However, there currently are several continuous PM monitors in use for documenting community exposure, and these data allow investigators to ask questions about very short-term (hourly) lags between health outcomes and PM exposure.
