Protect your employees, and reduce turnaround time.
Lead overexposure is one of the most common overexposures found in industry, and is a leading cause of workplace illness. Therefore, OSHA has established the reduction of lead exposure to be a high strategic priority. That means OSHA will want to see exposure monitoring data to check compliance with the OSHA Lead Standard.
It is also a major potential public health risk. In general populations, lead may be present in hazardous concentrations in food, water, and air. Sources include paint, urban dust, and folk remedies. Lead poisoning is the leading environmentally induced illness in children. At greatest risk are children under the age of six because they are undergoing rapid neurological and physical development.
Lead adversely affects numerous body systems and causes forms of health impairment and disease that arise after periods of exposure as short as days (acute exposure) or as long as several years (chronic exposure). The frequency and severity of medical symptoms increases with the concentration of lead in the blood. Common symptoms of acute lead poisoning are loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, constipation, difficulty in sleeping, fatigue, moodiness, headache, joint or muscle aches, anemia, and decreased sexual drive. Acute health poisoning from uncontrolled occupational exposures has resulted in fatalities. Long term (chronic) overexposure to lead may result in severe damage to the blood-forming, nervous, urinary, and reproductive systems.
The most effective way to protect workers is to minimize their exposure through engineering controls, good work practices and training, and the use of personal protective clothing and equipment, including respirators, where required. Engineering controls include material substitution, isolation, process/equipment modification and local ventilation. Some fundamental and easily implemented work practices are good housekeeping, appropriate personal hygiene practices, periodic inspection and maintenance of process and control equipment, proper procedures to perform a task, and appropriate supervision to ensure that the proper procedures are followed.