N° 82 – February-March 2010
Monthly Electronic Newsletter of Sertox (Latin-American Portal of Toxicology) – Year 7

Over 700 plant species are recognized as potentially toxic in the world and of these, which are often used as ornamental species reach to 468. So, why then insist  with the problem of rhus in our region?. In the U.S. each year, thousands of people suffer from painful inflammation of the skin by contact with poison ivy (Rhus radicans), a plant that is widespread in that country. In Argentina, we had that problem because we had no rhus plants. We started in 2001 to handle cases of contact dermatitis from this plant. We knew then, indirectly, about the import and spread of alien species from detecting the first cases, which quickly began to multiply. Thus we learn that in the city of Rosario had 200 copies of Rhus tiphina, planted in 1996 (Video in Spanish) and also in other cities and towns near Rosario (see below). An important difference between the toxicity of rhus respect to other ornamental toxic  plants, is that most of the plants that are toxic they are to swallow, a situation unlikely, except in small children or pets, not like the rhus contact. The second difference is that the latency between exposure and onset of dermatitis is delayed between 24 and 48 hours minimum, sometimes up to a week, so you can not easily correlate the exposure with the onset of clinical symptoms. Worse is when the contact with objects contaminated with urushiol … This led us to make further comments on two recurring themes: the endemic by bromate and rhus, in addition to other previous contributions such as rhus dermatitis: an epidemic advances in our region. We talked about what happened in Totoras, Santa Fe, where they had joined the public trees and had some copies with pictures of some children dermatitis.The same happened in Monte Maiz, Cordoba, where several children playing "war" with their fruit suffered severe  dermatitis. The response of the authorities of that ltown may be drastic but it certainly was effective. They decided to slash and burn of the 100 newly planted specimens (show). From Sertox, we can only discourage individuals from being planted these trees and even encourage the removal of which have recently been planted, but we believe that more effective measures should be taken at government levels. Otherwise, the logo of this issue and the title of the editorial will remain in force. And our editorials on the rhus not allow us to discuss current issues. Just this month there were many new features. Finally, review the recently completed edition of RETEL No. 26, the first of 2010. Until the next issue. JCP