Document RpGL0ZNwbNwwxErVdj3wXQw8B

FILE NAME Quigley QUIG DATE 1972 Mar 7 DOC QUIG014 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Internal Report NIOSH & OSHA OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY & HEALTH REPORT Volume 21 March 7 1972 NIOSH - OSHA'S GIANT PARTNER Importance of the Williams Act role of OSHA under DOL Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 to industry has been well publicized The in setting safety and health standards the inspection so evident provisions citations and fines are has been the job of OSHA's powerful well known Not quite partner NIOSH in support of the Act is specifically set NIOSH National Institute of up under the Williams Steiger Safety and Health Act and is created under the jurisdiction of HEW NIOSH is consultant in 1 Determining health priorities 2 Setting health and safety standards 3 Hazard evaluations of toxicity determinations 4 Development of manpower to implement the Act 5. Operating a national occupational and illness recording and reporting system 6. Providing employer education 7. Approving state plans 8. Awarding grants to states In addition to such support activities responsibilities of its own under the Act the agency has important 1. Health and Safety Research 2 Industry wide studies 3. Hazard evaluations of toxicity determinations 4 Annual compilation of a list of toxic substances 5. Development of manpower for implementing the Act NIOSH is one of the 17 programs in the Health Services and Mental Health Administration HSHMA See Fig ) HSHMA in turn is one of 6 operating agencies of HEW NIOSH under Marcus M. Key M.D. as director is organized as shown in Fig 2 \ | 09 0858 is functional an operating division is identified Organization for each major activity eg Health and Safety Research Division of Laboratories and Criteria Development pe Industry studies - Division of Field Studies and Chemical Investigations Technical and Clinical Services including . hazard evaluation - Division of Technical Services back resources for Short Term Training Division of Training Promotion of New Occupational Health Programs levels and in industry and Agriculture - Division of Occupational Health Programs state and local - Implementation of HEW's Responsibilities Appalachian Laboratory for Occupational and Respiratory Diseases NIOSH's Regional Program Directors make initial response to requests for hazard evaluations and work closely with OSHA Regional Administrators and the State NIOSH will soon have an Assistant Director for Safety with staff res- for coordination of safety research and training and with line proensspiobnisliibtiileisties for operating the Institute's own health and safety program which will put into practice some of the things to be learned from research activities In the Division of Laboratories and Criteria Development a new branch has been created Behavioral and Motivational Factors Branch which will plan and conduct laboratory and worksite research on the psycho- logical behavioral and motivational factors which reflect and which are influenced by stress situations posed by job demands and by exposures to chemical and physical agents Other aspects of safety research will be carried out by Physiology and Ergonomics Branch and the Engineering Branch Reliance will also be made on the contract and research grant mechanisms in conducting our safety research Another new activity of NIOSH in the safety field is the testing and certification of respirators detector tubes and industrial hygiene instruments and eventually testing and certification may be extended to personal protective equipment when these are specified in standards Present respirator testing programs conducted by the Bureau of Mines in Pitts- burgh will Safety and be transferred to NIOSH's new Appalachian Center for Occupational Health in Morgantown West Virginia where it will be expanded Performance specifications for respirators have already been jointly developed by the Bureau of Mines and NIOSH under the Coal Act and will be extended to respirators used under the Occupational Safety and Health Act New performance specifications will have to be developed for industrial 09 0859 hygiene detector tubes and instruments but many items of personal protective equipment already have applicable national consensus standards The present modus operandi of the joint NIOSH respirator and vendor vendor testing and certification performance testing survey for quality control be used wherever appli- . cable . pa In standards setting research NIOSH will complete work this fiscal year on criteria for certain priority standards These will be recommendations for complete standards in that sampling methods and analytic procedures monitoring locations and intervals protective equipment and control procedures labelling precautions and first aid instructions will also be specified where applicable NIOSH has a long way to go in developing criteria for standards There are about 10,000 chemical substances in common or widespread industrial use there are standards for only 400-500 New chemicals are being developed at the rate of several thousand each year but only a dozen or two criteria packages are being turned out a year In addition the national standards setting organizations will make contributions and additional standards will result from NIOSH's hazard evaluations and first list of toxic substances toxicity determinations was published at the end NIOSH's ' of June and contained over 8,000 substances The list gives the concentration at which each substance is known to be toxic so it is most certainly not a list of on standards standards rather it is a shopping list for research The next annual list of toxic substances will contain many more entries especially pesticides and and will provide more information about each carcinogenic substance chemicals In addition to supporting training of the traditional disci- plines safety nurse in the field of occupational safety and health i.e. the engineer the industrial hygienist the occupational health the occupational health physician the toxicologist and the analytical chemist NIOSH has taken off in a new direction and is promoting the development of a new professional type which will be called the occupational safety and health professional This will be accomplished through a year baccalaureate degree course which could be linked with an associate degree and a masters program This occupational safety and health professional could not design a ventilation system or devise elaborate machine guards but he could recognize and evaluate occupational safety and health hazards and he would know where to go to get further help in controlling the hazards This is the type of compliance officer which the Department of Labor is looking for Then there is the Office of Health Surveillance and Biometrics which is called the National Health Hazards Survey It answers the need to know more about the magnitude and extent of the exposure to occupational health hazards in the United States The National Occupational Injury and Illness Reporting System will eventually accumulate data on the effects of exposure to the hazards but for a long time occupational illnesses will be reported 09 0860 because of recognition specificity of symptoms and medicolegal problems The first National Health Hazards Survey will be conducted by specially trained health hazards surveyors working out of the Regional Offices using exacting surveying techniques and controls They will be surveying a representative sample of about 9,000 manufacturing and service industries selected with the help of the Burea of Labor Statistics Actual survey will begin in January 1972 and should take about two years to De complete Information gained will be especially useful in assessing NIOSH priorities for research Basic technique of surveying for health hazards was tried out in the Chicago Metropolitan Area in 1967. It is interesting to note that in 3 out of 4 plants surveyed management did not recognize any health hazards in their plants while in the surveyor's judgment only one out of four plants did not have any employees at risk to an occupational health hazard Recent teamwork between OSHA and NIOSH has appeared Health Hazards Program announced January 4 1972 in Target Five toxic substances cotton dust silica lead and carbon monoxide be the focus of an accelerating thrust by OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health into the health aspects of the Occupational Safety and Health Act The campaign was described by Assistant Labor Secretary George C. -Guenther as the health parallel to OSHA's oriented Target Indus- tries Program that is seekintgo reduce injury frequency rates in five high industries The Target Health Hazards program is in part a response to the finding that 60 percent of the employee complaints we have received since the Act became effective April 28 1971 have involved health hazards Guenther said The OSHA inspection priorities are new priorities are as follows being altered Guenther said 1 Investigation of deaths or serious injuries as at present ; 2 Investigation of complaints as now 3. Special programs Target Industry Program as now Target Health Hazards Program new 4 Random section of establishments of all sizes across the nation as now The Target Health Hazards program will focus on industrial hygiene inspections in several thousand establishments of varying size and type of operation Together these establishments employ more than 4 million persons ' The criteria for selection of the five toxic substances included the following Broad employee exposure to these substances and to the resultant severity of their hazards 09 0861 Standards for workplace exposure levels of all five are valid with asbestos having been updated only last month The high priority accorded all five by NIOSH in its research efforts' The feasibility for swift compliance action especially in assessing environmental effects against established workplace limits Asbestos can produce a severe lung disease called asbestosis Guenther said In addition asbestos fibers in the lung may lead to cancer Employees facing risks from asbestos total more than 200,000 in the fields of insulation manufacturing of products using asbestos shipbuilding construction and others he said WA At of Cotton dust can risk are more than all types produce 800,000 byssinois a employees in disabling lung disease cotton processing operations Silica can At risk are more iron and mineral produce silicosis another disabling lung disease than 1.1 million employees in abrasives manufacturing . processing sandblasting and other operations Lead can produce severe gastrointestinal blood and central nervous system disabilities At risk are more than 1.6 million employees engaged in the manufacturing of ammunition paint storage batteries autos and other products Carbon monoxide uncountable thousands can produce brain damage or death in metal processing operations and gasoline equipment At risk users of are Guenther emphasized that the new program involves close cooperation between OSHA and NIOSH He noted that NIOSH has initiated a hazards evaluation program of hazard exposure to permit employers and employees to request evaluation conditions for which standards are existent or appear inadequate us Two aspects of NIOSH program are of special current interest to The priority list for Toxic Substances and Physical Agents indicate order of standard see attached priority list will The hazard evaluation activity can mean facility inspections in addition to those by OSHA Such inspections are generated when a health hazard citation of OSHA is contested NIOSH is then requested to conduct the facts Briefly INSPECTION such this tests means and determinations to establish careful scientific taking 09 0862 REFERENCES The Real Significance of Occupational Health 3 Marcus Key M.D. Director of NIOSH Presented at National Safety Congress Chicago 10/25/71 BNA - OSHR - No. 36 1/6/72 page 719 09 0863