Estimating historical occupational exposure to airborne hexavalent chromium in a chromate production plant: 1940--1972

This article presents a retrospective exposure assessment for 493 workers who were occupationally exposed to airborne hexavalent chromium, Cr(VI), at a Painesville, Ohio, chromate production plant from 1940-1972. Exposure estimates were reconstructed using a job-exposure matrix approach that related job titles with area monitoring data from 21 industrial hygiene surveys conducted from 1943 to 1971. No personal monitoring data were collected. Specifically, airborne Cr(VI) concentration profiles for 22 areas of the plant, termed job-exposure group (JEG) areas, were constructed for three distinct time periods (1940-1949, 1950-1964, and 1965-1972), with cut points based on known major plant and process changes. Average airborne Cr(VI) concentrations were the highest for the bridge crane operators (5.5 mg/m3) prior to 1965, although only four cohort members held this job title. Airborne concentrations for the rest of the production areas of the plant ranged from 1.9 mg/m3 for packers in the 1940s to 0.012 mg/m3 for ore mill operators after 1964. For nearly all JEG areas, exposures decreased over time, particularly after 1964. For example, average airborne concentrations in production areas of the plant decreased from 0.72 mg/m3 in the 1940s to 0.27 mg/m3 from 1950 to 1964, and the average was 0.039 mg/m3 after 1964. Former workers were interviewed to determine activity patterns in the plant by job title. This information was combined with Cr(VI) monitoring data to calculate cumulative occupational exposure for each worker. Cumulative exposures ranged from 0.003 to 23 (mg/m3) x years. The highest monthly 8-hour average exposure concentration for each worker ranged from 0.003 to 4.1 mg/m3. These exposure estimates have been combined with mortality data for this cohort to assess the lung cancer risk associated with inhaled Cr(VI), and a positive dose-response relationship was observed for increases in lung cancer mortality with measures of cumulative exposure and highest monthly exposure.     

Reduction of hexavalent chromium by the earthworm Eisenia foetida (Savigny)

Several metabolic systems in Eisenia foetida competent to achieve an intracellular Cr(VI) reduction are described. Evidence that earthworms act as effective scavengers of hexavalent chromium from the environment is also provided. Results suggest that E. foetida may play an important role during occasional Cr(VI) pollution of soils.     

Chronic toxicity of hexavalent chromium to the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas)

The chronic effects of hexavalent chromium on the fathead minnow (Pimephales promelas) were investigated. Survival was affected only at the high test concentration of 3.95 mg Cr/L. All chromium concentrations, including 0.018 mg/L, the lowest tested, retarded the early growth of first-generation fish, but this effect was only temporary. Growth of second-generation fish was not affected at concentrations of 1.0 mg/L or lower. Reproduction and hatchability of eggs were not affected at any chromium concentration tested.The maximum acceptable toxicant concentration (MATC) for fathead minnows in hard water (209 mg/L as CaCO₃ at pH 7.7) was based on survival and lies between 1.0 and 3.95 mg Cr/L, respectively. The application factor (MATC/96-hr LC50) is between 0.03 and 0.11.     

Mussolini's fight against occupational diseases (1922-1943): Italian leadership in the production of artificial silk

After the end of the World War I Italy's economy was predominantly rural; industrialization had taken place only in the North-Western "Milan-Genoa-Turin triangle". Technological know-how and experience in developing the production cycles were scarce. The early experience in occupational medicine had been abruptly interrupted by the war. The attitudes of the Fascist regime with regard to work protection were ambiguous: work was claimed to be a sacred source of the national wealth worth being safeguarded by the regime, but the workers' potential to antagonize the regime was seen as a constant danger to public order. This scenery is well exemplified by a case study: Viscose-Ray-on Industry developed in synchrony with Mussolini's seizing power, in the early 20s. Thanks to the initiative of some manufacturers, Italy acquired a predominant role in this sector and became the second producer after the United States. Huge factories were created and complex equipment was imported from abroad. No attention was paid to health and safety at work. The major source of risk was carbon disulphide, used as a solvent in the production of xanthogenate starting from cellulose, the raw material; which produces progressive conditions following prolonged exposure. The slowness and the substantial inertia of the Fascist regime in the protection of workers' health contrasted with the reality in the Unit States, Italy's main competitor of Italy in the production of rayon. In order to exploit masses of workers, Fascism, unlike Nazism, needed no inferior "race": social discrimination was equally effective. Modern industrial development in Italy relied on masses of semiliterate farmers originating first from the Venetian region and later (after World War II) from Southern Italy. Shortly after 1945, during the so-called "Reconstruction-period", health protection developed slowly and circumspectly. National agencies supposed to have a proactive role in prevention, such as ENPI, confirmed their role as consultant of the employers for hygiene and prevention matters. Only the workers' fight around 1970 overcame the concept of the Corporative state introduced by the Fascism.     

Isolations of subgenus III salmonellas (arizonas) in Cardiff, 1959-1971

Isolations of subgenus III salmonellas (arizonas) made in the regional Public Health Laboratory, Cardiff, between 1959 and 1971 are reviewed. The techniques of isolation are listed for the various materials examined. The necessity of using bismuth sulphite agar as a plating medium is stressed, as some strains might appear on brilliant green MacConkey agar as rapid lactose fermenters and be missed. The serotypes isolated in Cardiff are discussed with reference to isolations by other authors. The culture of a subgenus III salmonella from pig faeces is described. It is thought that this is the first record of such an isolation from a pig in the United Kingdom.     

Research on health inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean: bibliometric analysis (1971-2000) and descriptive content analysis (1971-1995)

We conducted a bibliometric and content analysis of research on health inequalities produced in Latin American and Caribbean countries. In our bibliometric analysis (n = 576), we used indexed material published between 1971 and 2000. The content analysis (n = 269) covered the period 1971 to 1995 and included unpublished material. We found recent rapid growth in overall output. Brazil, Chile, and Mexico contributed mostly empirical research, while Ecuador and Argentina produced more conceptual studies. We found, in the literature reviewed, a relative neglect of gender, race, and ethnicity issues. We also found remarkable diversity in research designs, however, along with strong consideration of ecological and ethnographic methods absent in other research traditions.     

The effect of hexavalent chromium on the critical thermal maximum and body burden ofClioperla clio (Plecoptera:Perlodidae)

Clioperla clio (Plecoptera:Perlodidae) nymphs exposed to eight levels of hexavalent chromium experienced 0.03% (control) to 76.0% lethality after 96 hr at 9.0°C and had an LC50 of 101.3 mg/L (95% C.I.=88.9 – 118.1 mg/L). Nymphs exposed to sublethal levels of Cr⁺⁶ in EPA hardwater at 9.0°C had statistically significant reduction in upper temperature tolerance measured as critical thermal maximum (CTM_CONTROL > > , range 31.46–29.49°C). The ecological death endpoint criterion resulted in low variability for controls (C.V.=2.4%). Exposed nymphs digested with nitric acid had mean body burdens ranging from 1.37 (g total Cr/g dry weight) for those exposed to 5.25 mg/L, to 26.71 for the 143.25 mg/L exposure group. As Cr⁺⁶ exposure increased, body burden of nymphs increased linearly, and CTM significantly decreased. Since the 96-hr LC50 greatly exceeds Cr⁺⁶ measured in the field and the critical thermal maxima are at least 10°C greater than the adult emergence temperature, it is unlikely that environmentally realistic combinations of Cr⁺⁶ and temperatures will have adverse impacts on mature nymphs ofClioperla clio in nature if adverse conditions are of short duration.     

Abortion,USA, 1971. (Letter to the editor)

The trend toward the liberalization of abortion is bringing with it a sociomedical revolution in the U.S. Although it is premature to assess the effect of New York's permissive law, there are suggestive data. Illegal abortionists are hard-pressed for business. Deaths from illegal abortions have dropped. And the fact that most women having legal abortions are unmarried indicates that the illegitimacy rate will be reduced. The poor and minority group members are now able to secure legal abortions so that discrimination is now less flagrant that it was.     

Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) and the specificity of serological reactions, one hundred years ago and now

One hundred years after his discovery of the AB0 blood groups, the monumental work of Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943, Nobel Prize 1930) on the specificity of serological reactions is widely recognised. His work on isoantigen reactions included the discovery, together with Levine and Wiener, of the Rhesus factor. Landsteiner did much to develop our understanding of autoantibody reactions and also contributed insights into the aetiology of infectious diseases that were rampant in his time. His work in immunochemistry included the discovery of hapten antigenicity. However, most of all he wanted to be remembered for his theory on the specificity of serological reactions, which he had strongly substantiated with his own work. Landsteiner suffered from the shortages in Vienna at the end of World War I. He and his family moved to the Netherlands in 1919. There he worked as pathologist at the Red Cross Hospital in The Hague until his move to the Rockefeller Institute in New York in 1923. Nowadays, his work is celebrated for its numerous excellent contributions to the fields of transfusion and transplantation medicine, population genetics, immunology, and infectiology.