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Welcome to TOXSEEK, the meta-search and clustering engine for Environmental Health and Toxicology. This valuable tool is a powerful and well-organized way to search through an array of government and other authoritative databases for any health and toxicological information you may need. This guide is divided into three parts:
Using TOXSEEK is very easy and straightforward. Two major components are present in the TOXSEEK engine: the search box, and the checklist of sources.
The search box is where you input your search. Type in the box and click "Search." This instructs TOXSEEK to search in the sources that you have checked in the checklist. TOXSEEK does not particularly support Boolean search operators, so terms such as "and", "or", and "not" will be considered as actual search words, and sent to the sources without any changes. However it means because almost all of the searchable sources support Boolean words you can use those words in your search. TOXSEEK does, however, accept quotation marks as an indication of word grouping.
The checklist contains a list of sources with links to their respective websites and a checkbox that can be enabled or disabled. To instruct TOXSEEK to search in a particular source, check the corresponding box. If you would like to view a brief description of the source, mouse over the source acronym.
The results are presented in a categorical fashion, with the number of hits per source displayed along the top. The hits list can be toggled on or off right above this list (Hide hits).
The "Search" button initiates a new search (on the previously searched sources), "New Search" goes to the target selection page and clears the search box, "Modify Search" do the same without clearing the search box. "Clear" will simply clear the search box.
You can narrow your search to a particular group of sources by pressing the name of the target group. (ie.
Additionally, a tree with results clustered is displayed on the left:
Clicking on the "+" sign next to "Result Clusters" expands the tree to show all the results under it, and clicking the "-" sign will restore the tree to it's condensed form. The drop down menu will sort the tree by Relevance Order or Alphabetical Order. Clicking on the results, such as "workers exposed to benzene," will tell TOXSEEK to display articles containing the result; for instance, clicking the "(2)" next to "inhaled benzene" will display the two articles that contain the phrase "inhaled benzene." Checking a box next to a result will cause new options to appear:
This allows a user to search for multiple results by checking multiple boxes.
"Show more" and "Show All" display the rest of the tree if there is not enough room to fit the entire tree on one page.
If TOXSEEK encounters duplicates within the result set it will remove them. By default the results are sorted in order of relevance, but the drop down menu on the right side can change your preference to alphabetical or by source.
The results are shown in bibliographic format with the title of the article followed by a list of authors, issue number, page number and other relevant information. Clicking on the title will take you to a preview of the article (the abstract along with bibliographic information). A notable addition is the inclusion of the article's ranking by source, as shown in the green. This indicates the article's importance by relevance and the source it was extracted from.
Below is a full list of databases with links and a description for each of them.
NLMTOXNET
HSDB
Hazardous Substances Data Bank - Broad scope in human and animal toxicity, safety and handling, environmental fate, and more. Scientifically peer-reviewed
TOXLINE
Extensive array of references to literature on biochemical, pharmacological, physiological, and toxicological effects of drugs and other chemicals
ALTBIB
Bibliography on Alternatives to Animal Testing
CCRIS
Chemical Carcinogenesis Research Information System - carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, tumor promotion, and tumor inhibition data provided by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
ChemIDPlus
Numerous chemical synonyms, structures, regulatory list information, and links to other databases containing information about the chemicals
DART
Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology and Environmental Teratology Information Center - Current and older literature on developmental and reproductive toxicology
GENE-TOX
Peer-reviewed mutagenicity test data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Haz-Map
Information on Hazardous Chemicals and Occupational Diseases
Household Products
Household Products Database
IRIS
Integrated Risk Information System - data from the EPA in support of human health risk assessment, focusing on hazard identification and dose-response assessment
ITER
International Toxicity Estimates for Risk
TRI-2003
Annual estimated releases of toxic chemicals to the environment - the Environmental Protection Agency's TRI (Toxics Release Inventory)
Other NLM
Artic Health
An information portal to issues affecting the health and well-being of our planet’s northern-most inhabitants
Bookshelf
The Bookshelf is a growing collection of biomedical books that can be searched directly (NCBI)
ClinicalTrials.gov
Information about clinical research studies
DIRLINE
Directory of Health Organizations Online
MedlinePlus
Good health information from the world’s largest medical library, the National Library of Medicine
NLM Catalog
The NLM Catalog provides access to NLM bibliographic data for journals, books, audiovisuals, computer software, electronic resources and other materials.
PubMed
A service of the National Library of Medicine, includes over 15 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950’s. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals
PubMed Central
A digital archive of life sciences journal literature, developed and managed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM)
NIH
NCI
National Cancer Institute
NIEHS
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
NIH Search
National Institute of Health Search: The steward of medical and behavioral research for the Nation. It is an Agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
U.S. Government
AgNIC
Agriculture Network Information Center
ATSDR
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
CDC
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC eLCOSH
Electronic Library of Construction Occupational Safety and Health
CDC NASD
National Agricultural Safety Database (CDC service)
CDC NIOSH
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
CPSC
US Consumer Product Safety Commission: charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction
CSB
US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board: Investigating chemical accidents
DOE
US Department of Energy
DOE Energy Citations
Energy Citations contains bibliographic records for energy and energy-related scientific and technical information from the Department of Energy (DOE)
DOE Environmental Policy & Guidance
We develop DOE-wide environmental protection policies and strategies for protecting the public and the environment and for achieving environmental compliance with internal and external environmental requirements.
DOL MSHA
US Department of Labor - Mine Safety and Health Administration
DOL OSHA
U.S. Department of Labor - Occupational Safety & Health Administration
EPA
US Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Envirofacts
EPA Envirofacts Data Warehouse
EPA HPV
EPA High Production Volume Challenge Program
EPA SRS
EPA Substance Registry System
FDA
Food and Drug Administration
FDA CBER
Center for biologics evaluation and research
FDA CDER
Center for drug evaluation and research
FirstGov
US Government Portal
NAL AGRICOLA
National Agricultural Library - The National agricultural Library’s Catalog and Article Citation Database
NAL CATALOG
Includes books, serials, audiovisuals, and other resources.
USDA
United States Department of Agriculture
International
IPCS INCHEM
Chemical Safety Information for Intergovernmental Organizations: Access to internationally peer reviewed information on chemicals commonly used throughout the world
IPCS INTOX
International Programme on Chemical Safety - An essential source of toxicological information for poison centres and others
UNEP Chemical
United Nations Environmental Programme - Division of Technology, Industry, and Economics
WHO
World Health Organization
Other Resources
ACS
American Chemical Society
AWMA
Air & Waste Management Association
CPDB
Carcinogenic Potency Database: A unique and standardized resource on results of chronic, long-term animal cancer tests
EXTOXNET
The Extension Toxicology Network -Objective, science-based information about pesticides - written for the non-expert
NSC
National Safety Council: providing safety and health solutions for reducing unintentional deaths and disabling injuries
Scorecard
Resource for information about pollution problems and toxic chemicals
SRC
Syracuse Research Corporation - Environmental Science
If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to email them to tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.
National Institutes of Health, Department of Health & Human Services
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Customer Service: tehip@teh.nlm.nih.gov.