Origins of behavioral teratology and distinctions between research on pharmaceutical agents and environmental/industrial chemicals.

Most behavioral teratology studies have focused on pharmaceutical agents. Investigations of developmental toxicity are lacking for the majority of the nearly 100,000 industrial chemicals currently in use. Only some three dozen chemicals have been examined for behavioral/neurochemical deviations in offspring following maternal exposures. Examination of industrial agents for developmental toxicity, therefore, remains a major public health need. Most developmental research addresses the effects of pharmaceutical agents, but these studies frequently do not address environmental/industrial concerns due to fundamental differences in experimental methodology. The route, duration, and timing of exposure, usefulness of fostering of offspring, and potential concomitant exposure of both parents are all variables which should be treated differently in research on industrial chemicals as opposed to pharmaceutical agents. After briefly tracking the history of behavioral teratology, the present paper discusses differences in application of behavioral teratological principles to industrial versus pharmaceutical agents, and points to the largely untested number of industrial chemicals needing investigation.