Alternative approaches can greatly reduce the number of fish used for acute toxicity testing.

Acute toxicity tests with algae, daphnids, and fish are required for the classification and environmental risk assessment of chemicals. The degree of risk is determined by the lowest of these acute toxicity values. Many ecotoxicological programs are seeking to reduce the numbers of fish used in acute toxicity testing.

QSARs in ecotoxicological risk assessment.

The need for more ecotoxicological data encourages the use of QSARs because of the reduction of (animal) testing, time and cost. QSARs may however only be used if they prove to be reliable and accurate. In this paper, four QSARs were attempted to predict toxicity for 170 compounds from a broad chemical class, using them as a black-box.

Absorption of a mutagenic metabolite released from protein-bound residues of furazolidone.

The use of nitrofurans as veterinary drugs has been banned in the EU since 1993 due to doubts on the safety of the protein-bound residues of these drugs in edible products. Following treatment of pigs with the veterinary drug furazolidone free 3-amino-2-oxazolidinone (AOZ), the side-chain of the drug, could be detected in the blood in concentrations up to 0.3 μg/ml.