Metal Fume Fever

Details

• Personal Author:
  Beckett WS ; Chen LC ; Cosma G ; Fine J ; Garte S ; Gordon T ; Kinney P ; Sparer, Judith
• Description:
  The acute response to zinc-oxide (1314132) fumes in naive human subjects and galvanized sheet metal workers was investigated. Of 12 naive subjects, ten experienced a mild fever after a 2 hour exposure to zinc-oxide fume at 5mg/m3 (the OSHA permissible exposure limit) or 2.5mg/m3. Metal fume fever symptoms were significantly increased 6 and 9 hours after a 5mg/m3 exposure. The most common symptoms were fatigue, muscle ache, and cough. Elevated white blood cell counts were also seen. Those who experienced mild symptoms and fever developed tolerance of these effects with repeated exposures on subsequent days. Sheet metal workers with ongoing low level exposure showed tolerance to exposure at 5mg/m3. However, zinc- oxide exposure in these individuals induced elevated levels of interleukin-6 in the blood. The findings demonstrated that mild symptoms and fever can occur in previously unexposed men and women several hours after they breathe ultrafine zinc-oxide fumes for only 2 hours at the 5.0mg/m3 level. This occurred in a high proportion of healthy and normal individuals. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Metals Metal Workers Occupational Health Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety
• Keywords:
  Metal-fume-fever Metal-oxides Metalworking-industry Nanotechnology NIOSH-Grant Pulmonary-system-disorders Respiratory-system-disorders
• Series:
  Grant Final Reports
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Final Grant Report
• Place as Subject:
  Connecticut ; OSHA Region 1
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  OEP - Office of Extramural Programs
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-34
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:00238192
• NTIS Accession Number:
  PB97-206379
• Citation:
  Occupational Medicine Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 1996 Jul; :1-34
• Contact Point Address:
  Occupational Medicine Yale Univ Sch of Med 333 Cedar St/cb 5039 New Haven, CT 06510
• CAS Registry Number:
  Zinc oxide (ZnO) (CAS RN 1314-13-2)
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1996
• NORA Priority Area:
  Pulmonary System Disorders
• Performing Organization:
  Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  19920930
• Source Full Name:
  Occupational Medicine Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
• End Date:
  19950929
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:9b505cbbc4d6f34da6f057c83ce169e15d7c56cb1dc6c36c91adc7682ec51bdc1d0aa31d48b2c23e8dbeb45b9743be85304796bb9fc81fa02142dc773d06fe44
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/217920/cdc_217920_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.14 MB ]