The major role of toxicology societies in global collaborations – a call to action

While the concept of the internationalization of toxicology can take the form of collaborative relationships between individual scholars and researchers with overlapping interests, the true potential of such collaborations can best be realized when larger institutions such as governments or professional societies join forces. A classic example of such a collaboration is when the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology (AACT) and the European Association of Poison Control Centres and Clinical Toxicologists (EAPCCT) jointly generated a series of scholarly position statements that resulted in a major upheaval in the approaches to gastrointestinal decontamination in poisoned patients—an upheaval that is still being felt in clinical practice today and one that has enhanced the care of our patients. This collaboration between societies, an important event in the history of clinical toxicology, should serve not just as position statements, but more importantly as an emblematic model of the way professional toxicological societies can interact.The patterns of international scientific collaboration can be investigated by analyzing scientometric databases for internationally co-authored articles. Such an investigation shows that the science of toxicology is growing globally. For example, when countries from different regions of the world are searched in SCImago for their scientific production in toxicology, then the top countries from 10 regions of the world are as follow: Iran from Middle East, UK from Western Europe, Poland from Eastern Europe, Tunisia from Northern Africa, Nigeria from Central Africa, South Africa from Southern Africa, USA from Northern America, Brazil from Latin America, China from Asiatic Region, and Australia from Pacific region.If the number of registered toxicologists from societies of these countries from the IUTOX database are counted, an estimated 4000 members are found. The actual number of toxicologists is undoubtedly much higher since many socie