The U.S. Department of Labor announced that its Occupational Safety and Health Administration has published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to revise its standards for occupational exposure to lead.

Appendix A to federal OSHA’s 1978 lead standard (current today) provides that blood lead level (BLL) of workers, both male and female, who intend to have children should be maintained below 30 micrograms per deciliter (ug/dL) “to minimize adverse reproductive health effects to the parents and to the developing fetus.

Hundreds of U.S. air marshals and federal Bureau of Prisons employees were exposed to dangerous levels of lead while pursuing required firearms proficiencies at gun ranges sanctioned by the federal government, according to an investigation by the Seattle Times.

A foundry, its owner and three members of its safety consultant company have been found in criminal contempt by U.S. District Judge Beth Phillips after disobeying a court order to allow federal inspectors to investigate a report of an employee at the foundry with an elevated blood lead.

OSHA in December, 2014, cited Republic Metals Inc. in Cleveland for 19 alleged serious health and safety violations, including exposure to lead and copper fumes. The proposed penalties are $42,800, the administration said in a news release Thursday, Dec. 18.

Emotional and behavioral problems show up even with low exposure to lead, and as blood lead levels increase in children, so do the problems, according to research funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health. The results were published online June 30 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

The American Industrial Hygiene Association® (AIHA) has issued recommendations to prevent lead poisoning among children in developing nations, based on a case study of lead contamination conditions in several countries in Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia. 

Cleaning up a site in preparation for a tour by potential investors has resulted in a $2,359,000 for Olivet Management LLC, a real estate development and management company that owns the former Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center in Dover Plains, N.Y.