Environmental Health and Safety

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In what has to be the first sign that the federal government truly recognizes the problem of outdated Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs), Federal OSHA has begun an effort to provide more guidance and information to employers and workers to compare some of the many different exposure limits being used.

Why is control banding useful? The occupational exposure limit (OEL) is the marker that shows the level of control needed for a chemical. Repeated daily exposure by inhaling a chemical at an airborne concentration below its OEL is unlikely to lead to harm in most workers. However, many thousands of chemicals are in use, and it is not possible to have an OEL for every chemical, chemical mixture, fume, or emission.

Employees who use nanomaterials in research or production processes may be exposed to nanoparticles through inhalation, dermal contact, or ingestion, depending upon how employees use and handle them. Although the potential health effects of such exposure are not fully understood at this time, scientific studies indicate that at least some of these materials are biologically active, may readily penetrate intact human skin, and have produced toxicologic reactions in the lungs of exposed experimental animals.

Exposure refers to a measurable contact of an agent with a target or receptor for a specific duration of time. In the broadest terms, agents can be biological, physical, chemical, social, or psychological, and can produce both adverse and beneficial impacts to the target.

Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”  is the process of injecting large volumes of water, sand, and chemicals into the ground at high pressure to break up shale formation allowing more efficient recovery of oil and gas.

TOM FRIEDEN: First, we had the potential exposure to anthrax at CDC’s laboratory. Second, earlier this week, we learned about an incident in CDC’s influenza laboratory. And third, we had the discovery of vials labeled as smallpox in a storage room on the NIH campus and CDC’s work to secure and to characterize these materials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released a report that reviews the early June incident that involved the unintentional exposure of personnel to potentially viable anthrax at the CDC’s Roybal Campus. The report identifies factors found to have contributed to the incident; and highlights actions taken by the agency to address these factors and prevent future incidents.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Office for Total Worker Health (TWH)™ recently launched an Affiliate Program in order to increase the number of work environments that support the overall safety, health and well-being of workers. Inaugural members of the NIOSH TWH Affiliate Program include the University of Colorado, School of Public Health and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).