Which chemical is the most harmful to the human body?

Question

If you were to rate 1-4, 1 being the worst and 4 the least, how would you rate the following chemcials as posing the greaest threat upon entering the human body.

Formaldehyde

Aluminum

Phenoxyethanol (anti-freeze)

Mercury

Answer 1

For something pretty close to instant death, on this list, the anti-freeze is pretty toxic.  Birds that drink whatever comes from the overflow of a radiator die very quickly.... you might do some googleing with California Condor Death rates + anti-freeze.  Since it apparently has a sweet flavor, dogs that drink it up from the garage floors, generally don't live too long.  As I remember, it is toxic to kidney function.

Answer 2

I briefly googled these chemicals, and here is my opinion:

Mercury poisoning generally doesn't kill people. It might make you a little sick, but you'd get over it, especially in a small dose. I give it a 1.

Formaldehyde also didn't produce too many death incidents, so I'd rate that as a 1 or 2.

Anti freeze had the highest number of death rates, so it gets a 4.

and Aluminum alone doesn't pose a huge threat, but aluminum, which is commonly mixed with several other chemicals, is pretty deadly. So it gets a 1 on it's own, and a 4 when mixed.

Hope this helped!

Answer 3

To provide a reasonable answer to this, one would need to know the concentration and amount administered to determine respective toxicity.

It's too complex of a matter to assign ratings of toxicity to without additional information.  Too much of any of these will be harmful/lethal.

In the acute term, I'd have to say mercury and its associated neurotoxicity, but again, to give a more precise answer, I'd need to know the exact "threats" that one is concerned about and the precise concentration of the agents.