Acephate Exposure and Decontamination on Tobacco Harvesters Hands

Details

• Personal Author:
  Buhler W ; Curwin, Brian D. ; Hein, Misty J. ; Nishioka M ; Sanderson, Wayne T.
• Description:
  Agricultural workers manually harvesting tobacco have the potential for high dermal exposure to pesticides, particularly on the hands. Often gloves are not worn as it hinders the harvesters' ability to harvest the tobacco leaves. To enable harvesters to remove pesticide residue on the hands and decrease absorbed doses, the EPA Worker Protection Standard requires growers to have hand-wash stations available in the field. The purpose of this study was to measure the concentration of acephate residue on the hands of tobacco harvesters, and the effectiveness of hand washing in reducing the acephate residue. Hand-wipes from the hands of 12 tobacco harvesters were collected at the end of the morning and at the end of the afternoon over 2 consecutive days. Each harvester had one hand-wiped prior to washing his hands, and the other hand-wiped after washing his hands with soap and water. In addition to the hand-wipe samples, leaf-wipe samples were collected from 15 tobacco plants to determine the amount of acephate residue on the plants. The average acephate level in leaf-wipe samples was 1.4 ng/cm(2). The geometric mean prewash and postwash acephate levels on the hands were 10.5 and 0.4 ng/cm(2), respectively. Both prewash (P-value=0.0009) and postwash hand (P-value=0.01) samples were positively correlated with leaf-wipe concentrations. Tobacco harvester position tended to influence hand exposure. Hand washing significantly reduced acephate levels on the hand, after adjusting for sampling period, hand sampled, job position, and leaf-wipe concentration (P-value< or =0.0001) with levels reduced by 96%. A substantial amount of acephate was transferred to the hands, and while hand washing significantly reduced the amount of residue on the hands, not all residue was removed. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Agriculture Farmers Insecticides Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Safety Tobacco Products
• Keywords:
  Agricultural-industry Agricultural-workers Decontamination Occupational-exposure Pesticides Pesticides-and-agricultural-chemicals Tobacco Tobacco-dusts Tobacco-industry
• ISSN:
  1053-4245
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  North Carolina ; Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5
• 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:
  203-210
• Volume:
  13
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20023941
• Citation:
  J Expo Anal Environ Epidemiol 2003 May; 13(3):203-210
• Contact Point Address:
  Dr. Brian Curwin, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations and Field Studies, Industrywide Studies Branch, 4676 Columbia Parkway MS R-14, Cincinnati. Ohio 45226, USA
• Email:
  bcurwin@cdc.gov
• CAS Registry Number:
  Acephate (CAS RN 30560-19-1)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2003
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:94f9a26889f3ab73edf208b2cabf491ac13c80656c0ab2c40d51de587203393ab9e708d531e6e1728dd758410315d6bd15044afa2c015b74e36478a5650605b1
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/195986/cdc_195986_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 335.50 KB ]