Acute toxicity is the ability of a substance (such as a pesticide) to cause adverse effects within a short period following dosing or exposure. This period of time is usually 96 hours or less. Acute toxicity is often measured by something called the Lethal Dose 50 (or LD50). The LD50 is a useful measure for comparing the relative acute toxicities of different chemicals and is one of the criteria that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses to assign signal words to household pesticides.

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