Color Vision Impairment in Workers

Occupational exposure to mercury (0.08) and chemical solvents, including styrene (2.95), tetrachloroethylene (3.40), /j-hexane (3.90), toluene (2.73), and carbon disulfide (1.94), has been shown to impair color vision in exposed workers J48l Color vision impairment was also observed for those exposed to solvent mixtures at levels below TLV values. I49l No explanation was offered by the authors for the observed mixture effect. 

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Gobba F, Cavalleri A. Color vision impairment in workers exposed to neurotoxic chemicals. Neurotoxicology 2003 24(4-5) 693-702. 

Some neurotoxic effects of exposures to organic solvent mixtures are not anticipated. Solvent mixture exposures to lipophilic/hydrophilic mixtures have been shown to impair color vision in those exposed to paints and lacquers, printers, and workers in microelectronics plants. I81-83 The authors of these studies did not offer any hypothesis for the observed effects. 

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