Pneumococcal Pneumonia on the Job: Uncovering the Past Story of Occupational Exposure to Metal Fumes and Dust

Details

• Personal Author:
  Blanc PD ; Naidoo RN ; Torén, Kjell
• Description:
  The objectives of this study are to elucidate the early history of risk for pneumococcal pneumonia from occupational exposure to metal fumes and dusts, and to demonstrate the importance of searching older literature when performing reviews. We performed manual searching for articles in the Library of the Surgeon General's Office (the precursor to Index Medicus), in the Hathi Trust database, in PubMed, andby screening reference lists in literature appearing before the introduction of PubMed. An early body of literature, from the 1890s onward, recognized that pneumonia was linked to "Thomas slag," a steel industry byproduct containing iron, manganese, and lime. Researchers, mainly in Germany, showed that workers in metal-dust-exposed occupations, especially using manganese, manifested an increased incidence of pneumococcal pneumonia. An outbreak of pneumococcal pneumonia in the 1930s implicated manganese fume in its etiology. In the immediate post-World War II period, there was a brief flurry of interest in pneumonia from exposure to potassium permanganate that was soon dismissed as a chemical pneumonitis. After a hiatus of two decades, epidemiologic investigations drew attention to the pneumonia risks of welding and related metal fume exposure, bringing renewed interest to the forgotten role of pneumococcal pneumonia as an occupational disease. Occupational or environmental inhalation of manganese, iron, or irritants may be causally related to increased pneumococcal pneumonia risk. In particular, the risk associated with manganese seems to be overlooked in recent literature. An important conclusion is the importance of obtaining additional evidence through a deeper assessment of the literature in a broad historical context. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Dust Manganese Metals Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Respiratory Tract Diseases Safety Welding
• Keywords:
  Author Keywords: History Of Medicine Bacterial Infections Industrial Disease Metal Dusts Metal Fume Metal Fumes Occupational Exposure Occupational Health Occupational Medicine Pneumonia Welding Welding Fumes

  More +
• ISSN:
  0271-3586
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  California ; OSHA Region 9
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  65
• Issue:
  7
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067254
• Citation:
  Am J Ind Med 2022 Jul; 65(7):517-524
• Contact Point Address:
  Kjell Torén, MD, PhD, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Box 414, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
• Email:
  Kjell.Toren@amm.gu.se
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of California, Berkeley
• Peer Reviewed:
  True
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• End Date:
  20250630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:96e5546b79e2ace277c0c5b2473dc7e75cc16dca008e1d72d69d158e084dc3b846061f0add55f26ec1f9254f90989a7174507cfb546ca10edfc6cbf732838eb0
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/231369/cdc_231369_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 568.03 KB ]