DB2 Response

Instructions : ½ page AMA format--evaluate your classmate’s proposed intervention. Provide feedback using the reading this week to support your ideas.

Initial Post Instructions-for reference: What are the identified hazards? What intervention could you propose to address the situation identified in your chosen exhibit? State the level under which your intervention falls (engineering, administrative, and/or PPE). Provide your reasoning for suggesting the intervention. 

Classmate’s proposed inntervention- supporting info pg 2-3

2. Reproductive health and the workplace. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/repro/takehome.html. Updated April 20, 2017. Accessed November 4, 2017.

3. Cafasso J. Lead Poisoning. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health/lead-poisoning#overview1. Published June 21, 2016. Accessed November 4, 2017.

The chemical industry is a very significant component of the global and U.S. domestic economy as a creator of vital products and a major source of employment.1 The U.S. chemical industry creates employment opportunities for as many as 800,000 workers.2 Chemicals are essential to the modern way of life: Without them, contemporary society would grind to a halt.

Despite the vital importance of chemicals for society, the international toll among employees from chemically associated workplace illnesses due to the widespread and growing use of chemicals in industry is noteworthy. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that industries use more than 50,000 chemicals, with 500 new chemicals added annually.3

Although many chemicals are entirely safe, especially when handled carefully, appropriate precautions must be taken with the application of others, or else serious or fatal injuries can occur. Some estimates place the annual global number of work-related injuries from use of chemicals at 35 million cases, including 430,000 fatalities.3 Given the risks to health from improper use of chemicals, the ILO stresses the need to check the safety of newly introduced chemicals before they are marketed. Sometimes new chemicals that have been introduced without adequate vetting of their safety have produced severe adverse health effects among workers.

One problematic issue with respect to chemicals in the workplace is their potential for causing cancer. This topic merits much additional research, as the relationship between workplace exposures and cancer has not been established completely, with the exception of known carcinogens.

Employees of the chemical industry could be at increased risk of adverse health effects from exposures to cancer-causing chemicals. A meta-analysis examined a large number of studies that covered more than one million employees of the chemical industry in Europe and the United States. Interestingly, the authors reported lower cause-specific mortality and site-specific cancer incidence rates than those found in the general population. Mortality from all causes and many forms of chronic diseases was lower than expected. A possible explanation for these findings was the influence of the healthy worker effect.4 However, weak to moderate excesses in mortality were found for lung and bladder cancer; these effects might have resulted from workers’ exposures to cancer-causing chemicals.

The level of societal concern regarding the safety of chemicals for the environment and for occupational health was heightened by notorious historical incidents in which toxic chemicals were released unintentionally into the community. For example, on July 10, 1976, an explosion at a factory in Seveso, Italy (Lombardia region of Italy), dispersed the poisonous chemicals known as dioxins over an area of about 2.8 km2. Residents of the zone of contamination had to be evacuated. The health effects believed to be associated with this episode included cases of chloracne (a potentially severe form of acne caused by dioxin) and the death of one resident from pancreatic cancer seven months after the explosion. Dioxins are highly toxic chemicals produced as the by-product of industrial activities.

Nearly a decade later, a runaway chemical reaction at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India, released a different chemical (deadly methyl isocyanate) on the night of December 2, 1984. This industrial catastrophe killed at least 3800 residents of the Indian city.

Occupational exposures and the consequences of these exposures for workers are central topics for discourse in occupational health—especially in view of the wide range of suspected occupational illnesses that researchers have linked with chemical exposures. This chapter covers many types of chemical agents that are found in the workplace, sources of exposure, and health effects of such exposures. This compilation is not exhaustive, but rather provides selected examples of the major categories of chemicals used in work settings. The substances covered include the following categories:

•  Toxic gases

•  Industrial solvents/volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

•  Heavy metals

•  Rubber, petroleum, and fossil fuel–based products

•  Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)

•  Pesticides

•  Other chemicals and substances (e.g., flavorings and pharmaceuticals)