The name LD50 is an abbreviation for “Lethal Dose, 50%” or median lethal dose. It is the amount of the substance required (usually per body weight) to kill 50% of the test population.
The test was created by J.W. Trevan in 1927, but has been phased out. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun to approve non-animal alternatives to LD50, in response to research cruelty concerns and the lack of validity/sensitivity of animal tests as they relate to humans.
The above text is retrieved from the Wikipedia article “LD50“, which has been released under the GNU Free Documentation License. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
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