Health Hazard Evaluation Report: HETA 91-0040-2510: Kraft General Foods, Inc., Maxwell House Coffee, CO., Houston, Texas

Details

• Personal Author:
  Burton, Nancy C. ; Shults, Ruth A.
• Corporate Authors:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Description:
  In response to a request received from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, Local Union 408, an investigation was begun into worker exposure to coffee dust, methylene-chloride (75092), asbestos (1332214) dust, phosphine (7803512), and vitamin dust at the Kraft General Foods Inc., Maxwell House Coffee Company (SIC-2095) in Houston, Texas. There were about 550 workers employed at the facility in coffee processing and rice processing. A walk-through survey was conducted of the instant coffee and rice production areas and industrial hygiene sampling was also conducted. Asbestos had been removed from the building by 1991, and the use of methylene-chloride had been discontinued before 1988. None of the personal breathing zone or area air concentrations of respirable dust collected in the production areas exceeded the allowable limits for nuisance dust. Based on medical department logs, 4.9% of the workers reported respiratory symptoms suggestive of asthma. Two bronchial asthma deaths were reported in the early 1980s. A statistically significant excess of all malignant neoplasms for white males but not for the other three race/sex groups was noted. Lung cancer was the predominant malignant neoplasm reported. Due to a lack of exposure data, it was not possible to link a specific causal agent to the excess cancer deaths for white males in the time period studied. The authors recommend specific measures to improve the work environment.
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Asthma Asthma, Occupational Dust Food-Processing Industry Neoplasms Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Particulate Matter Safety
• Keywords:
  Airborne-dusts Bronchial-asthma Cancer-rates Coffee Dust Dust-exposure Food-processing-industry Food-processing-workers Hazard-Unconfirmed HETA-91-0040-2510 Methylene Chloride NIOSH-Author NIOSH-Health-Hazard-Evaluation NIOSH-Technical-Assistance-Report Occupational-exposure Occupational Asthma OSHA Region 6 Phosphine PMR Proportional Mortality Ratio Respirable Dust Roasted Coffee

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• Series:
  Health Hazard Evaluation Reports (HHE)
• Subseries:
  Health Evaluation and Technical Assistance (HETA)
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.26616/NIOSHHETA9100402510
• Publisher:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Field Study
• Place as Subject:
  Texas ; OSHA Region 6
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  27 pdf pages
• Contributor:
  Cook, Calvin K. ; Petersen, Martin E.
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00228254
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB95-270021
• Citation:
  Cincinnati, OH: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, HETA 91-0040-2510, 1995 Jun ; :1-27
• CAS Registry Number:
  Methylene chloride (CAS RN 75-09-2) ; Asbestos (CAS RN 1332-21-4) ; Phosphine (CAS RN 7803-51-2)
• Editor(s):
  Day, Caren B.
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1995
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• NAICS and SIC Codes:
  2095 - Roasted coffee - (SIC)
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:808e58e2843ff4e45bb03db92b01aa15152a6fb5aa0dfe04c40c4b83cc959721516a9570c44b29e4ba0f21baa44c31a2853925ea06946331e54ddfae24f6071a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/171273/cdc_171273_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 219.75 KB ]