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Asked by anon-193358 to Heidi, Emma, iainstaniland, Carl on 5 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-193619.
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Heidi Gardner answered on 5 Nov 2018:
Oooh, interesting question! It depends what you mean when you say dangerous – dangerous if a human eats it, if an animal touches it, or something bigger than could damage the planet as a whole?
I think digoxin is probably the most interesting because it’s a dangerous chemical that can be used to help people. If people have too much of it, then it can make the heart stop, but in smaller amounts it is used to make the heart beat more strongly.
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Emma Crawford answered on 5 Nov 2018: last edited 5 Nov 2018 9:10 pm
This question could have multiple answers all depending on your definition of dangerous – as Heidi has also identified.
My main role as a statistician is to help communicate the results of a clinical trial based on the questions that the trial was set up to answer. With the same set of data, you could present the results in many different ways depending on what it is you want to focus on – similarly here in defining a dangerous chemical there could be many elements to consider! It could be down to personal preference or based on certain criteria?
There was actually a big debate on a similar subject a few years ago when the Lancet (a famous scientific journal) published a study that ranked alcohol as the most dangerous drug in the UK. Other researchers did not necessarily agree with how the lead author decided to measure the risk of each drug in order to assign them numeric rankings – you can read more here: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/24/8094759/alcohol-marijuana
After reading that what’s your opinion?
Personally for me, I think theobromine and caffeine are both very dangerous chemicals… They are both stimulants found in chocolate… which for me is highly addictive and has dangerous effects on both my waist line and bank balance! 😉
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