The marginalization of hormesis

Despite the substantial development and publication of highly reproducible toxicological data, the concept of hermetic dose-response relationships was never integrated into the mainstream of toxicological thought. Review of t he historical foundations of the interpretation of the bioassay and assessm ent of competitive theories of dose-response relationships lead to the conc lusion that multiple factors contributed to the marginalization of hormesis during the middle and subsequent decades of the 20th Century. These factor s include the following: (a) the close association of hormesis with homeopa thy, which led to the hostility of modern medicine toward homeopathy, there by creating a guilt-by-association framework, and the carryover influence o f that hostility toward hormesis in the judgements of medically based pharm acologists/toxicologists; (b) the emphasis of high-dose effects linked with a lack of appreciation of the significance of the implications of low-dose stimulatory effects; (c) the lack of an evolution-based mechanism(s) to ac count for hermetic effects; and (d) lack of appropriate scientific advocate s to counter aggressive and intellectually powerful critics of the hermetic perspective.