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Chemical exposure limits to be discussed at length

A British Occupational Hygiene Society product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 11, 2005

Exposure limits for chemicals are set to be a hot topic at the BOHS Annual Conference in Manchester from 19 to 21 April, 2005.

Exposure limits for chemicals are set to be a hot topic at the BOHS Annual Conference in Manchester from 19 to 21 April, 2005.

Exposure limits for chemicals are bound to feature strongly in the discussions at this year's British Occupational Hygiene Society Conference, both in response to platform presentations and in the coffee lounge between sessions.

This is partly because the HSC is scheduled to publish its long-awaited new system of Workplace Exposure Limits just two weeks before the Conference starts, and this will therefore be the first opportunity for hygienists and others working in the field to get together and discuss the new Approved Code of Practice and new list of limits.

But this year there will be another reason to discuss exposure limits: the BOHS's Bedford Prize is to be presented at the conference to Dr Dick Heederik of the Institute of Risk Assessment Sciences of Utrecht University, for a paper he wrote with two collaborators on the controversial topic of exposure limits for sensitisers.

The Bedford Prize is awarded every other year for the best paper in the BOHS's journal, Annals of Occupational Hygiene.

Sensitisers are a particularly difficult problem for exposure limits and have been controversial topics Europe-wide.

People can work for years with a substance, and then become sensitised, so that the smallest exposure can cause reaction, sometimes severe, or occasionally fatal.

The victim may initially only show a mild reaction - perhaps sneezing or rhinitis - but continued exposure may lead in the end to more severe responses.

Moreover, the reaction can be to widespread substances such as flour, and can in some cases seriously limit the range of jobs available to the sensitised person.

So, should exposure limits protect people who have become sensitised, in which case they will be set at very low levels and be very expensive to implement, or should they be set to prevent sensitisation, or should they just aim to prevent the symptoms such as sneezing or rhinitis? The prize-winning paper explored these and related topics, with the aid of exposure and response data collected by Dick and colleagues.

On the Wednesday morning at the Conference, Dick will be giving a paper with his latest thinking on the topic.

Then he has to return to Utrecht for the Thursday, so he can give his inaugural oration as a Professor in the Institute.

Meanwhile, back in Manchester, the conference delegates will be chewing over what he has had to say, and how it relates to the new limits and procedures from the HSC.

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