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Identifying hazards and judging risk
Published in Alan Hall, The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk, 2020
Although farmers often worked at night with limited lighting, darkness and the need for additional lighting in fields was also largely missing from official and farmer lists of farm hazards. However, a better example of a farm condition largely excluded from the health and safety discourse in farming then and still largely now, are the health risks of chemical fertilizer exposure. Although farmers using pesticides were required by the time of the study to take a course on pesticides, the course and the Ministries of Labour (OMOL) and Agriculture (OMAF), and the farm safety organizations (OFSA, CFSA) were silent on whether there were any risks involved in the inhalation, ingestion or skin exposure to most chemical fertilizers, with one notable exception, anhydrous ammonia. Anhydrous ammonia was understood officially and among farm operators and workers as presenting both significant safety and health risks which included a risk of explosion (Ontario Farm Safety Association, 1990). However, other more commonly used fertilizers such as urea or different forms of phosphate were not addressed in any meaningful ways as potential health risks, and accordingly, almost all the farmers took no steps to reduce their exposures or the exposures of their family or workers.1
An Overview of the NIAID/NIH Chemical Medical Countermeasures Product Research and Development Program *
Published in Brian J. Lukey, James A. Romano, Salem Harry, Chemical Warfare Agents, 2019
David. T. Yeung, Gennady. E. Platoff Jr., Jill. R. Harper, David. A. Jett
Compounding the threat posed by purposeful release, multiple incidents of accidental discharge of toxic industrial chemicals and materials (TICs/TIMs) have also been reported throughout the world. For example, as many as 5000 people died and more than 14,000 were injured because of a methyl isocyanate leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in December 1984 (Howard, 2014; Tognoni, 2010). A 2011 rail incident in Chelyabinsk, Russia, released a large bromine vapor cloud into the city of 1.1 million people (BBC News, 2011). Even more recently, in 2015, multiple explosions at a chemical warehouse in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin released 700 tons of highly toxic substances, mainly sodium cyanide, into the air and waters in and around the city with a total municipal population of over 15 million people (Hanna and Hunt, 2015). Within the United States, scores of industrial and transportation accidents involving chemicals have been reported as well. For example, unintentional industrial release of anhydrous ammonia, methyl chloride, phosgene, oleum, and chlorine have all occurred within the very recent past (Ball and Dworak, 2005; U.S. Chemical Safety Board, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015).
Occupational Asthma
Published in Jonathan A. Bernstein, Mark L. Levy, Clinical Asthma, 2014
HMW and LMW agents known to cause OA involve T-helper type 2 (Th2) proinflammatory cytokines characteristic of IgE-mediated allergic asthma.19 Enzymes are a good example of HMW agents whereas acid anhydrides are a good example of LMW agents known to cause OA through an IgE-mediated mechanism. In contrast to HMW agents, most LMW chemicals (plicatic acid and diisocyanates) cause OA through as of yet unknown non-IgE-mediated mechanisms. Several mechanisms have been proposed for different clinical presentations associated with a number of causative agents.19 For acid anhydrides, specific IgE, cytotoxic, immune complex, and cell-mediated immune responses have all been reported (Table 24.1).25,26 The mechanism(s) for irritant-induced asthma or RADS caused by a single high exposure or chronic low exposure to a chemical (i.e., anhydrous ammonia) also remains elusive.4 It is speculated that chronic inflammatory changes occur in these workers as a result of toxic injury to bronchial epithelial cells leading to loss of epithelial-derived relaxing factors combined with neurogenic inflammation and release of bioactive mediators and proinflammatory cytokines by nonspecific activation of mast cells.4 A number of OA animal models have been developed in an attempt to better elucidate the role of innate and adaptive immune responses in causing a variety of IgE and non-IgE-mediated induced OA.27–29
Clinical toxicology of exposures to chemicals from clandestine drug laboratories: a literature review
Published in Clinical Toxicology, 2022
Arjen Koppen, Anja P. G. Wijnands-Kleukers, Femke M. J. Gresnigt, Dylan W. de Lange
Drug synthesis potentially involves exposure to hazardous chemicals which could result in serious health effects. Hazardous chemicals used in bulk in clandestine drug laboratories include toxic alcohols, organic solvents, acidic and alkaline solutions [2–4]. For instance, methanol is used as a solvent during the synthesis of MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymetamfetamine), including the Wacker oxidation from safrole to piperonyl methyl ketone [37]. During these processes, methanol evaporates, and without adequate ventilation, harmful airborne concentrations may be reached. Organic solvents, including heptane and toluene, are used for extraction of intermediate or end products [2,5]. Anhydrous ammonia is another hazardous chemical commonly used in the synthesis of illicit drugs. This chemical is used, together with an alkali metal (usually lithium or sodium), to reduce ephedrine or pseudoephedrine to form metamfetamine in the so-called Birch reduction [6].