Introduce yourself to your classmates with your name, location (Memphis Tennessee current employment Laboratory Corporation of American (Labcorp), and future goals. In the event of a natural disaster such as Hurricane Matthew in 2016 or Hurricane Katrina in 2005( my home state is Louisiana I was affected by Katrina) identify and explain which two specialized fields of toxicology would be most involved in assessing the health risks and environmental issues involved in the aftermath of the storms. What do you think their main role would be?

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Adam:

Hello, my name is Adam, I currently live in a small town called Visalia California where I am originally from but, lived in San Jose for 7 years. I currently work at UPS where I transitioned my poisition to health and safety supervisor however, recently I am also learning about processing hazardous material and recovery as well. My future goals is to gain experience in the feild of health, safety, and hazardous material and advance my career to the best of my ability. I also strive to be the best health and safety professional I can be keeping employees, the environment, and infrastructure as safe as possible.

In the case of a natural disaster such as a hurricane, there are many components of toxicology that would need to be considered to assist in the recovery process. This would include what and who were exposured to toxic substances and in what quantity? What are the impacts that this toxic material can have on factors like human health, air, water, soil, and infrastructure? What are the adverse effects of this toxic substance? Can the damage done be mitigated or reversed? These are some of the questions that would be asked in most cases related to exposure to a toxic material.

A descriptive toxicologist would be involved in assessing these factors in relation to human health. This would be the people who focus mostly on toxicity testing of chemicals and identifying the hazards associated with the harmful effects on human organs. This would also include understanding of how toxic material in absorbed through the human body and figuring how to remove it. The other toxicologist would be a applied toxicologist who study how chemicals interact with real world situations. They would help determine exposure limits associated with the level of toxic material present in non-laboratory environments. This would also include understanding the pathways of how a toxic material can be absorbed into the human body or environment. I believe these two studies would be the best in understanding toxicology impacts in the case of a hurricane.