Risk management strategy to increase the safety of workers in the nanomaterials industry.

In recent years, many engineered nanomaterials (NMs) have been produced, but increasing research has revealed that these may have toxicities far greater than conventional materials and cause significant adverse health effects. At present, there is insufficient data to determine the permissible concentrations of NMs in the workplace. There is also a lack of toxicity data and environmental monitoring results relating to complete health risk assessment. In view of this, we believe that workers in the NMs industry should be provided with simple and practical risk management strategy to ensure occupational health and safety. In this study, we developed a risk management strategy based on the precautionary risk management (PRM). The risk of the engineered NMs manufacturing plants can be divided into three levels based on aspect identification, solubility tests, dermal absorption, and cytotoxic analyses. The risk management strategies include aspects relating to technology control, engineering control, personal protective equipment, and monitoring of the working environment for each level. Here we report the first case in which a simple and practical risk management strategy applying in specific engineered NMs manufacturing plants. We are confident that our risk management strategy can be effectively reduced engineered NM industries risks for workers.

The development and regulation of occupational exposure limits in Taiwan.

The occupational exposure limits (OELs) in Taiwan was promulgated in 1974 and has been revised five times since then. Many of the OELs were adopted from the most recent ACGIH TLVs and US OSHA PELs. A total of 483 chemicals were listed in the current Taiwan OELs Standard. The procedures of OELs development in Taiwan include the IOSH organized a recommended exposure limits (RELs) Committee to select the target chemicals and to recommend the RELs through literature review based on the health effects in the first stage, then, the CLA put policy needs, economical and technical feasibility into consideration and set up the final OELs at the second stage. A standard operation manual of RELs Committee has been developed. Based on our experience, several issues including the participation of representatives from a comprehensive spectrum, communication/education and training/enforcement, continuous collection of the local exposure data and health hazard information, use of health risk assessment, consideration of economic, and technical feasibility, as well as the globalization and information and experience sharing are critical in developing the appropriate OELs. Three examples including benzene, crystalline silica, and 2-methoxy ethanol are given to demonstrate the operation of system.

Occupational health research in Taiwan.

This article gave a brief introduction of population, labor force, general status of occupational safety and health in Taiwan. Statistics of occupational injuries and health disorders, laws and regulations relevant to occupational health were also covered. Research activities driven by universities, research institutes, society/association were provided. Two multi-lateral collaborative research examples were presented: an intoxication outbreak-initiated CS2 study and an information-demand-motivated 2-methoxy-ethanol study. Industrial hygienists, engineers, epidemiologists, and occupational physicians from both universities and research institutes, governmental agencies, and from non-profit R&D organizations and academic associations were involved in these researches, presenting a promise that integrated collaboration of inter-disciplinary specialty cooperated with governmental participation could benefit not only academic achievement, governmental policy-makeup, but also to the employees themselves.