Archive of EUROTOX and Predecessor Bodies

The European Society for the Study of Drug Toxicity was set up as a result of the thalidomide tragedy by a group of pharmaceutical industry experts in Switzerland who were already meeting regularly though informally. They called a meeting of European toxicological experts who met in Zurich on 20 September 1962. This group of experts from France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland inaugurated the Society. Its first scientific meeting took place in Paris in January 1963. It went on to hold further meetings, workshops and develop working groups in specific areas, as well as forming international liaisons. Members came from the pharmaceutical industry, academic research, and regulatory authorities.

In order to extend its remit to include environmental as well as clinical toxicology it changed its name to the European Society of Toxicology in 1975. From 1978 a newsletter was produced and sent to all members.

With the development of national toxicological societies, a Federation of European Societies of Toxicology was established in 1985 under the aegis of the European Society.

As the two organisations' interests and activities overlapped, one having only individual members and the other representing societies, negotiations for a merger were put in hand, leading to the formal launch of EUROTOX in Brighton in 1989.

See EUROTOX, European Toxicology 1962-2002: From the European Society for the Study of Drug Toxicity (ESSDT) to EUROTOX by Claire M Chambers, Christian M Hodel and Jens S Schou