Attention to environmental health sciences has been expanding at an impressive rate. With the recognition that recent and emerging changes in the external environment have the potential to influence genetic function, hormonal biology, as well as other important physiological parameters, the significance of environmental medicine on individual and population health has become a major area of study for scientists and public health officials.

A major concern is the challenge of persistent toxicants retained with the human body as many toxic compounds have long half-lives and bio-magnify up the food chain. As well, many persistent pollutants accumulate in developing children through vertical transfer from mother to child in utero and via breast milk. As a consequence, many individuals now carry heavy body burdens of persistent toxicants, which often increase with advancing age as a result of ubiquitous exposures. Furthermore, despite regulations to restrict the ongoing use of some toxicants in certain nations, historical environmental contamination, and regional release as a result of lack of regulation in other jurisdictions has resulted in ongoing exposures throughout much of the world.

Little attention in the mainstream medical literature has been devoted to mechanisms to address and resolve the problem of endogenous chemical stockpiling. Intervention to reduce the body burden of persistent toxicant compounds – the field of clinical detoxification – constitutes a fundamental and urgently required approach to reducing toxicant-related health issues.

The main focus of this special issue will be the translation of emerging scientific knowledge in clinical detoxification in order to provide practical and useful information for clinical medicine as well as public health policy. The special issue will become an international forum for researchers to summarize the most recent developments and ideas in the field, with a special emphasis given to practical methods to diminish the total load or body burden of toxicants within individuals.

Accordingly we will be looking for papers on strategies to address each of these broad areas. Topics to be covered include, but are not limited to:

• Strategies to achieve precautionary avoidance of chemical and electromagnetic exposures
• Strategies to enhance excretion of persistent organic pollutants and toxic elements
• Removal of persistent mycotoxins and retained mold
• Historical and cultural strategies for human cleansing
• Assessment of body burden of bioaccumulated toxicants
• Public policy issues related to pervasive exposures and toxicant bioaccumulation
• Relating toxicant body burden with health status

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/tswj/toxicology/cdet/ according to the following timetable: