Immunotoxicology testing: past and future.

A brief historical perspective of immunotoxicology is presented describing the early development of predictive screening tests to identify xenobiotics that may cause immunosuppression or skin sensitization. This includes a discussion of the evolution of the discipline to support a better understanding of basic -science and improvement of human risk assessment. The last section describes the need for additional validated screening tests and recent efforts to address this gap in the other areas of immunotoxicology including food and respiratory allergy, autoimmunity and immunostimulation.