Traits and causes of environmental loss-related chemical accidents in China based on co-word analysis.

Chemical accidents are major causes of environmental losses and have been debated due to the potential threat to human beings and environment. Compared with the single statistical analysis, co-word analysis of chemical accidents illustrates significant traits at various levels and presents data into a visual network. This study utilizes a co-word analysis of the keywords extracted from the Web crawling texts of environmental loss-related chemical accidents and uses the Pearson's correlation coefficient to examine the internal attributes. To visualize the keywords of the accidents, this study carries out a multidimensional scaling analysis applying PROXSCAL and centrality identification. The research results show that an enormous environmental cost is exacted, especially given the expected environmental loss-related chemical accidents with geographical features. Meanwhile, each event often brings more than one environmental impact. Large number of chemical substances are released in the form of solid, liquid, and gas, leading to serious results. Eight clusters that represent the traits of these accidents are formed, including "leakage," "poisoning," "explosion," "pipeline crack," "river pollution," "dust pollution," "emission," and "industrial effluent." "Explosion" and "gas" possess a strong correlation with "poisoning," located at the center of visualization map.

Unmanned vehicles for maritime spill response case study: Exercise Cathach.

This paper deals with two aspects, namely a historical analysis of the use of unmanned vehicles (UAVs ROVs, AUVs) in maritime spill incidents and a detailed description of a multi-agency oil and HNS incident response exercise involving the integration and analysis of unmanned vehicles environmental sensing equipment. The exercise was a first in terms of the level of robotic systems deployed to assist in survey, surveillance and inspection roles for oil spills and harmful and noxious substances.

Exposure levels for chemical threat compounds: information to facilitate chemical incident response.

Although not widely known, a robust set of peer-reviewed public health and occupational exposure levels presently exist for key chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and certain acutely toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) identified as terrorist attack threats. Familiarity with these CWA and TIC exposure levels and their historic applications has facilitated emergency management decision-making by public and environmental health decision-makers. Specifically, multiple air, soil, and water exposure levels for CWAs and TICs summarized here have been extensively peer-reviewed and published; many have been recognized and are in use by federal and state health agencies as criteria for hazard zone prediction and assessment, occupational safety, and "how clean is clean enough" decisions. The key, however, is to know which criteria are most appropriate for specific decisions. While public safety is critical, high levels of concern often associated with perceived or actual proximity to extremely toxic chemical agents could result in overly cautious decisions that generate excessive delays, expenditure of scarce resources, and technological difficulties. Rapid selection of the most appropriate chemical exposure criteria is recommended to avoid such problems and expedite all phases of chemical incident response and recovery.

Dermatitis alérgica aerotransportada en la industria químico-farmacéutica / Airborne allergic dermatitis in the chemical/pharmaceutical industry

Introducción. Las dermatitis aerotransportadas (DAT) son todas aquellas reacciones cutáneas que aparecen tras el contacto con una serie de sustancias que se encuentran en el aire ambiental y que al depositarse en la piel producen lesiones en zonas expuestas, principalmente en la cara y el cuello, presentando una clínica muy polimorfa, con predominio en la mayoría de los casos de lesiones eczematosas. Existen numerosos productos químicos industriales y farmacéuticos que se han descrito como alergenos aerotransportados profesionales y parece que su frecuencia aumenta, por lo que resulta importante conocerlos para poder realizar diagnósticos correctos .Material y métodos. Se presentan 18 casos de dermatitis aerotransportada alérgica (DATA) en trabajadores de la industria químico-farmacéutica que fueron diagnosticados en el servicio de dermatología laboral desde el año 1980 hasta 2002, y se comparan el tipo de lesiones, la localización, el tiempo de evolución desde la exposición hasta el desarrollo de la clínica, las pruebas epicutáneas realizadas así como la edad, el sexo y la empresa en la que trabajaban. Resultados. En todos los casos la DATA apareció durante el proceso de elaboración de un fármaco. El agente sensibilizante en la mayoría de los casos fue el producto final o alguno de los metabolitos intermediarios. La sensibilización se demostró por la positividad a las pruebas epicutáneas específicas que se realizaron. Conclusiones. El estudio de estos pacientes resulta complicado, ya que se necesita la colaboración de las empresas (médicos, químicos, higienistas) que faciliten los productos y su composición y la forma de trabajo, así como personal adiestrado para preparar las diluciones con las que parchear al enfermo (AU)

Accidentes: Programa Nacional de Prevención / Accidents: National Prevention Program

Este documento, surgido de una Reunión Nacional sobre Prevención de Accidentes, realizada en diciembre de 1992, fue diseñado con el objeto de servir de base para unificar criterios de tratamiento del tema de la accidentología y producir los lineamientos generales de un proyecto nacional consensuado. El tema se aborda desde los Riesgos, por definir que ésta es la vía más adecuada a los fines de la Prevención