Foundry workers

Chemical plant, construction, agricultural workers Chemical plant workers, laboratory technicians Plumbers, outdoor sculpture artists, copper foundry workers Chemical plant workers, laboratory technicians Horticulturists... 

C Foundry workers Foundry sands Silica crystals Suspended dusts Inhalation... 

Perera FP, Hemminki K, Young TL, et ah Detection of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts in white blood cells of foundry workers. Cancer Res 48 2288-91, 1988... 

In a very early report, experimental subjects exposed to fresh magnesium oxide fume developed metal fume fever, an illness similar to influenza effects were fever, cough, oppression in the chest, and leukocytosis. After the introduction of a new process resulting in exposure to magnesium oxide fume in the 1980s, several German foundry workers developed recurrent occupational fever that was also interpreted as metal fume fever. ... 

Serious cases of tellurium intoxication have not been reported from industrial exposure. Iron foundry workers exposed to concentrations between 0.01 and O.lmg/m complained of garlic odor of the breath and sweat, dryness of the mouth and metallic taste, somnolence, anorexia, and occasional nausea urinary concentrations ranged from 0 to 0.06 mg/1. Somnolence and metallic taste in the mouth did not appear with regularity until the level of tellurium in the urine was at least 0.01 mg/l. Skin lesions in the form of scaly itching patches and loss of sweat function occurred in workers exposed to tellurium dioxide in an electrolytic lead refinery. ... 

Comell RG, Landis JR. 1984. Mortality patterns among nickel/chromium alloy foundry workers. In Sunderman FW, Jr, Aitio A, Berlin A, eds. Nickel in the human environment. lARC scientific publication no. 53. Lyon, France International Agency for Research on Cancer 87-93. 

In Siemiatycki s (1991) population-based case-control study of cancer in Montreal, Canada (see monograph on dichloromethane in this volume), phenol was one of the substances evaluated 1% of the entire study population had been exposed to it at some time. Among the main occupations to which phenol exposure was attributed in this study were electric motor repairmen and foundry workers. The publication reported an association between phenol and pancreatic cancer (odds ratio, 4.8 90% CI, 1.8-12.7 n = 4) for no other site was cancer risk associated with phenol exposure. [The Working Group noted that detailed results for other sites were not provided, because they were based on small numbers, and that workers typically had multiple exposures.]... 

In the Montreal case-control study carried out by Siemiatycki (1991) (see monograph on dichloromethane in this volume), the investigators estimated the associations between 293 workplace substances and several types of cancer. Isocyanates were one of the substances, and it was stated that the most common form in this study was toluene diisocyanates. The main occupations to which isocyanate exposure was attributed in this study were motor vehicle refinishers, motor vehicle mechanics and foundry workers. Only 0.8% of the study subjects had ever been exposed to isocyanates. For most types of cancer examined (oesophagus, stomach, colon, rectum, pancreas, prostate, bladder, kidney, skin melanoma, lymphoma), there was no indication of an excess risk due to isocyanates. For lung cancer, in the population subgroup of French Canadians (the majority ethnic group in this region), based on 10 cases exposed at any level, the odds ratio was 2.2 (90% CI, 0.9-5.3). [The interpretation of the null results has to take into account the small numbers and presumably low exposure levels. Workers had multiple exposures.]... 

The elemental composition shows surprisingly clean make ups overall, considering the technological abilities of the age and culture. This could be an indication that the ancient Judaean foundry workers and minters had access to remarkably pure ore sources, or could be evidence of their ability to refine those less pure ores which were available to them. 

Rosenman KD, Reilly MJ. 1998. Asbestos-related x-ray changes in foundry workers. Am J Ind Med 34 197-201. 

Silicosis is the oldest known occupational lung disease. Ancient Greeks were familiar with lung disease in quarry workers (Hippocrates) and the fact that respirators could prevent the disease (Pliny). Agricola (1566) described disease in stone cutters as later did Ramazini (1713). By 1917, the US Public Health Service identified sand blasters and foundry workers to be at high risk of silicosis. As the twentieth century progressed, silicosis was the reference to which newer diseases were compared. 

Foundry workers who are exposed to complex mixtures of gases and fine particles that include airborne particulates [H] and organic binders [L] have an elevated risk for lung cancer. In vitro laboratory studies have demonstrated mutagenic activity for these fumes, including free radical DNA damageJ53 ... 

Andjelkovich AA, Mathew RM, Richardson RB, et al. 1990. Mortality of iron foundry workers I. Overall findings. J Occup Med 32 529-540. 

Andjelkovich DA, Janszen DB, Brown MH, et al. 1995a. Mortality of iron foundry workers IV. Analysis of a subcohort exposed to formaldehyde. J Occup Environ Med 37 826-837. 

Andjelkovich DA, Janszen DB, Conolly RB, et al. 1995b. Fonnaldehyde exposure not associated with cancer of the respiratory tract in iron foundry workers A synopsis of CUT epidemiologic findings. CUT Act 15 1-9. 

Spectromet is black-box magic. Foundry workers would take a sample of metal in production taken from the pots" and, after minimal preparation, put it in the instrument and push the button. Within a minute, information on the concentrations of the elements of interest came up on dials. 

Humoral immunity was monitored in male iron foundry workers in Poland (Szczeklik et al. 1994). Coke oven workers (199) were compared to cold-rolling mill workers (76). The groups were similar with respect to age, length of employment, and smoking habits. The results showed that coke oven workers, exposed to high concentrations of atmospheric PAHs, including fluoranthene, perylene, pyrene, benzo[a]pyrene, chrysene, benz[a]anthracene, dibenz[a,h]anthracene, and... 

Exposure to benzo[a]pyrene, determined by personal monitors, was 2-60 ng/m which are the lowest levels yet analyzed in foundry workers. 1-Hydroxypyrene was measured in the urine, and PAH-DNA adducts were measured in white blood cells to demonstrate their relationship to the exposure. 

Perera FP, Tang DL, O Neill JP, et al. 1988. HPRT and glycophorin A mutations in foundry workers relationship to PAH exposure and to PAH-DNA adducts. Carcinogenesis 14(5) 969-973. 

Phillips DH, Hemminki K, Alhonen A, et al. 1988. Monitoring occupational exposure to carcinogens Detection by P-postlabelling of aromatic DNA adducts in white blood cells from iron foundry workers. Mutat Res 204 531-541. 

Sherson D, Sabro P, Sigsgaard T, et al. 1990. Biological monitoring of foundry workers exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Br J Ind Med 47(7) 448-453. 

Arsenic Carbon tetrachloride Copper Dimethylforamide 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid Eluorine Toluene Trichloroethylene Vinyl chloride Chemical plant, construction, agricultural workers Chemical plant workers, laboratory technicians Plumbers, outdoor sculpture artists, copper foundry workers Chemical plant workers, laboratory technicians Horticulturists Chemical plant workers, laboratory technicians Chemical plant, agricultural workers, laboratory technicians Printers, dye workers, cleaners, laboratory technicians Plastics plant workers, also found as a river pollutant... 

PAH diol epoxide-DNA adducts have not only been detected in rodent tissues in experimental systems after PAH exposure, but have also been identified in (a) populations exposed to complex mixtures containing PAHs, (b) foundry workers (Perera et al. 1988 Hemminki et al. 1988), (c) coke oven workers (Rojas et al. 1995 Pavanello et al. 1999), (d) cigarette smokers (Lodovici et al. 1998 Rojas et al. 1995), (e) chimney sweeps (Pavanello et al. 1999), and (f) populations exposed to smoky coal combustion mixtures (Mumford et al. 1993). Some bay- or fjord-region diol epoxides form DNA adducts in the human p53 tumor suppressor gene at sites that are hotspots for lung cancer (Smith et al. 2000). 

ZAMMIT-TABONA, M SHERKIN, M KUEK, K CHAN, H. CHAN-YEUNG, M. (1983) Asthma caused by diphenylmethane diisocyanate in foundry workers. Clinical, bronchial provocation and immunologic studies. American Review of Respiratory Disease, 128, 226-230. 

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