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| NIOSH Home > Safety and Health Topics >Skin Exposures and Effects >Occupational & Environmental Exposures of Skin to Chemicals- 2005> Abstracts |
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Wet Work as the Most Important Risk Factor for Occupational DermatosesA. Schmidt, Office for Occupational Dermatology, Nuremberg, Germany In the early nineties the German government asked a group of experts in Occupational Dermatology to suggest measures to reduce the increasing number of occupational dermatoses. I belonged to this group and I would like to share our experiences with you, in considering scientific results and practical demands for legal regulations which might meet the given goal as effectively as possible. Always had to be considered that our suggestions would mean costs for the industry and in fact we had strong discussions with industry representatives. First we looked at the harmfulness of substances with respect to corrosiveness and how many diseases were caused by these agents. By looking at the occupational accident statistics we soon saw that this was not the main problem and we found out why this was so. The next issue to look at was the epidemiological data of occupational dermatoses. It became obvious that there was a shortage on valid data. As the German legal system provides good possibilities to record occupational dermatoses nearly completely we did research on these data in a prospective way. Regarding the results of our own and different epidemiological data we found that wet work was at least an important factor. Now we had to rebut the reproach that wet work mostly is accompanied by the influence of other irritant substances, i.e., cleansing agents, emulgators, biocids, etc. We could show from research results and practical experience in a glass factory that wet work itself is a risk factor. With all these experiences we started to write the “TRGS Feuchtarbeit” (Approved Code of Practice Wet Work) where wet work is defined and where some important strategies are given to reduce occupational dermatoses. This TRGS being in force for nearly teen years now we can now show good effects in some fields.
Content last modified: 3 April 2005
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