Toxicological Principles for an Improved Hazard Notation System to Protect Workers from Dermal Exposures

Details

• Personal Author:
  Dotson, G. Scott ; Gadagbui B ; Maier A
• Description:
  To alert workers and employers of potential health hazards arising from skin contact with chemicals the traditional practice has been to assign qualitative hazard designations called skin notations to indicate that a substance has the potential to be percutaneously absorbed, and thus affect the interpretation of inhalation-based occupational exposure limits. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has developed a new strategy for assigning skin notations capable of providing a warning beyond percutaneous absorption and to address the limitations associated with the historical approach used for assigning skin notations. The new strategy provides guidance for the systematic application of a weight-of-evidence approach. This includes critically evaluating available data (i.e., human, animal, in vivo, in vitro, and mathematical predictions) to assign multiple hazard-specific skin notations (SK) capable of clearly distinguishing between systemic effects, direct effects, and immune-mediated responses. This presentation will provide an overview of the new NIOSH strategy with emphasis on issues encountered during the evaluation of 140+ chemicals including 1) assigning a systemic effects notation where data or model predictions indicate absorption, but no or only limited dermal toxicity data are available; 2) differentiating among irritant severity levels when relying on qualitative studies that used different material dilutions and test systems; and 3) developing notations for sensitization when limited human studies and standard animal assays provide conflicting results. The lessons learned in evaluating such problematic data sets provide the basis for refining weight-of-evidence evaluation approaches for hazard notations. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Air Pollutants, Occupational Biochemistry Environmental Monitoring Hypersensitivity Inhalation Exposure Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Particulate Matter Respiratory System Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety Skin Skin Diseases Workplace

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• Keywords:
  Airborne-particles Biological-effects Chemical-hypersensitivity Exposure-assessment Exposure-levels Exposure-methods Inhalants Inhalation-studies Mathematical-models Occupational-exposure Occupational-hazards Particulates Qualitative-analysis Risk-analysis Risk-factors Skin-disorders Skin-exposure Skin-irritants Skin-sensitivity Statistical-analysis Work-areas Work-environment Worker-health Workplace-studies

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• ISSN:
  1096-6080
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Abstract or Summary
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 5 ; OSHA Region 8 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  EID - Education and Information Division
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  114
• Issue:
  1
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20036666
• Citation:
  Toxicologist 2010 Mar; 114(1):381
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2010
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Source Full Name:
  The Toxicologist. Society of Toxicology 49th Annual Meeting and ToxExpo, March 7-11, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b5e00761f2ecd5e3cc6db5ff1dbd2142a19f80ab0e9de72a5562257bd5cd1c11e5982327ffb9718047aa0765a71471a21eba5e29cd81ec79747c2eae3c0a81b8
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/187996/cdc_187996_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 722.67 KB ]