Prevalence of beryllium sensitization among Department of Defense conventional munitions workers at low risk for exposure

Details

• Personal Author:
  Field RW ; Fuortes LJ ; Leonard SA ; Lourens S ; Mikulski MA ; Sanderson, Wayne T. ; Sprince NL
• Description:
  OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of beryllium sensitization among former and current Department of Defense workers from a conventional munitions facility. METHODS: Participants were screened by using Beryllium Lymphocyte Proliferation Test. Those sensitized were offered clinical evaluation for chronic beryllium disease. RESULTS: Eight (1.5%) of 524 screened workers were found sensitized to beryllium. Although the confidence interval was wide, the results suggested a possibly higher risk of sensitization among workers exposed to beryllium by occasional resurfacing of copper-2% beryllium alloy tools compared with workers with the lowest potential exposure (odds ratio = 2.6; 95% confidence interval, 0.23-29.9). CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this study suggest that Department of Defense workers with low overall exposure to beryllium had a low prevalence of beryllium sensitization. Sensitization rates might be higher where higher beryllium exposures presumably occurred, although this study lacked sufficient power to confirm this. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Beryllium Blood Environmental Monitoring Hypersensitivity Occupational Health Risk Assessment Risk Factors Safety
• Keywords:
  Beryllium-compounds Beryllium-disease Clinical-tests Copper-compounds Exposure-assessment Humans Lymphocytes Medical-screening Military-personnel Munitions-industry Nuclear-properties Risk-factors Sensitization Worker-health

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• ISSN:
  1076-2752
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Iowa ; Kentucky ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 7
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  258-265
• Volume:
  53
• Issue:
  3
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20046878
• Citation:
  J Occup Environ Med 2011 Mar; 53(3):258-265
• Contact Point Address:
  Marek Mikulski, MD, MPH, PhD, The University of Iowa, 2213 Westlawn, Iowa City, IA 52242
• Email:
  marek-mikulski@uiowa.edu
• CAS Registry Number:
  Beryllium (CAS RN 7440-41-7) ; Copper (CAS RN 7440-50-8)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2011
• Performing Organization:
  University of Iowa
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
• End Date:
  20290630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:43f80694a1a5735a64b00addf22d77b512f2dc9b9ea5fe0aa5ddc20a8de4278c08854290a9c346894ef5bacff7b6347b214d7d26b772c37d42594391bd4149e0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/202156/cdc_202156_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 173.39 KB ]