Document bB8rZ1JyVp419kRZ0QX0zzBmg

Gf t MEN" FROM cicnF ' 'OATI0N 4-tuu riiii'i rtwriuauuigll Jo, ro. on Job Hazards Industrial hygienists take over to cope with health problems in our advancing technology. PEOPLE WHO SAY their Jobs make them sick are mostly exaggerating. But a growing number of them are simply stating a fact: Occupational health problems are multiplying as an unfortu nate by-product of the nation's advances in technology. Industrial hygiene has become a major con cern of workers, employers and insurers alike as job environments have been invaded by potentially dangerous fumes, dusts, irritants and toxic chemicals. More than 4,000 new compounds are now being discovered and put to use each year in products ranging from loaves of bread to space satellites. Yet, despite this enormous increase in the variety of occupational health hazards, records of the National Safety Council show that the average American worker is safer on the job than ever before. Work Injuries of all types have been reduced 51 per cent since 1939. thanks largely to better safety engineering and health control measures devised by industry and its Insurance carriers. Concrete evidence of their joint efforts in improving on-the-job health is the Industrial Hygiene Foundation, a non-profit research or ganization supported by 250 of the nation's Industrial corporations and 150 insurance com panies. Organized in 1935 at Pittsburgh's Mellon Institute, the foundation originally devoted It self almost full time to research silicosis, a wide-spread lung disorder caused by many years of Inhaling quartz dust. Today its health