An Assessment of the Ocular Toxicity of Two Major Sources of Environmental Exposure

These data contain information on chemicals released in to the air from burn pits in Iraq (waste disposal areas for US military bases) and the 2023 Ohio train derailment in East Palestine. The goals of the study were to 1) predict the effects of exposure to these chemicals on the ocular surface and 2) to call attention to the relationship between environmental events and long-term damage to the surface of the eye—in particular, dry eye disease, which is a known result of workplace chemical exposures. The study employed in silico methods through the ACD Labs Percepta platform, using data from the European Chemical Inventory and the Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances to model the chemicals’ probability of ocular irritation. Variables include the names of compounds identified from the burn pits and the train derailment, along with their chemical formulas, simplified molecular input line entry system (abbreviated to SMILES), and probability of causing eye irritation.