Reaction kinetics of chemical pollutants as a basis of risk estimates in terms of rad-equivalence

Most mutagenic and carcinogenic chemicals are electrophilic agents or are converted to electrophilic agents in vivo. A majority of the effective genotoxic compounds are alkylating or arylating. The dose-response curve for mutation induced by alkylating agents is indicated to contain a linear component in the region of low doses. In this region the mutagenic effectiveness per unit dose was found for several alkylating agents to be approximately proportional to the calculated rate of reaction at a certain low nucleophilic strength. This proportionality appears, by and large, to be independent on the nature of the alkyl group introduced. Hence it is possible to ascribe a genetic risk to the degree of alkylation of these centers. This risk may be expressed in rad-equivalents