The future of occupational hygiene?

Last week I was over at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exhibition (AIHce) in San Antonio, Texas. It was my first time at this event and it was a great experience. This year is the 75th anniversary of the American Industrial Hygiene Association so this was an opportunity to look back on what the

Dust Exposure

There are many common industrial processes which cause workers to be exposed to a wide range of toxic and harmful dusts. Although official statistics are hard to come by, John Cherrie of the Institute of Occupational Medicine has estimated that in Great Britain almost 10 million workers are exposed to dust at work. Handling of

Putting measurements into context

A copy of William Blakes’s iconic monotype print of Isaac Newton is one of the works selected by Marianne Faithfull  for the DLA Piper Series: Innocence and Experience, exhibition  being shown at Tate Liverpool until 2 September. It’s unusual for scientists to be portrayed in art, and at first glance Newton appears as a heroic

Sampling for Sulphuric Acid Mist

Tomorrow I’m travelling over to Leeds to attend a seminar organised by the Chemical Industries Association seminar  on Controlling and Measuring Occupational Exposure to sulphuric acid mist. I’ll be making a brief presentation on sampling methodologies. I’ve uploaded a copy of the presentation to my Slideshare site, and it can be viewed below. Exposure to

How many samples?

As I’ve discussed in a previous post, there are many factors which lead to a wide variation in exposure for workers carrying out the same job. One implication of this is that it is very dangerous to draw conclusions from one or two samples. But how many samples need to be taken to ensure that