Biological agents levels

Interferon -biologic agent -flu-like symptoms-malaise, myalgias, fatigue, fever -nausea and vomiting—mild -anorexia -bone marrow suppression -mucocutaneous effects (stomatitis, mucositis) -cardiovascular effects (arrhythmias, hypotension) -mental status changes (confusion, lethargy, psychosis) -renal impairment (proteinuria) -elevation in transaminase levels... 

Unheard of amounts of federal funds is going into the construction of biocontainment laboratories, or hot labs, where the deadliest biological agents and potential bioweapons can be studied, researched and analyzed. These new hot labs would be mainly Biosafety Level 4 and Biosafety Level 3 laboratories dealing with infectious agents and toxins, the worst kind as far as danger and safety is concerned. 

Definition of topic An in-depth and complete training manual for first emergency responders and other secondary responders at all levels to incidents involving chemical and biological agents. 

Biosafety Level 1—Suitable for work involving well-characterized biological agents not known to consistently cause disease in healthy adult humans, and of minimal potential hazard to lab personnel and the environment. Work is generally conducted on open benchtops using standard microbiological practices. 

Biosafety Level 4—Suitable for work with the most infectious biological agents. Access to the two Biosafety Level 4 labs in the United States is highly restricted. 

This chapter will address the implications of the data presented in previous chapters for assessing the risks from environmental chemical exposures. WHO/IPCS has defined risk assessment as an empirically based paradigm that estimates the risk of adverse effects from exposure of an individual or population to a chemical, physical, or biological agent. As shown in Figure 21, it includes the components of hazard identification (Is there an adverse effect ), dose-response assessment (How severe is it ), exposure assessment (What is the level of exposure ), and risk characterization (What is the risk ) (NRC, 1983 IPCS, 2000). 

In the case of chemical pesticides, these include factors such as molecular weight and vapor pressure that determine the rate of evaporation into air of the pesticide in an applied material such as paint, or the release from aqueons solntion. In the case of biological agents, these include, for example, pathogenicity to hnmans, allergenicity, infectious dose levels and aerosol particle size distribntion. 

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