Time to reconsider TLVs

Our plain-English summary of Time to reconsider TLVs, by L. Djerassi (American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1988).

The study

• Author: L. Djerassi
• Journal: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
• Published: 1988;13(5):611-2
• Type of article: Letter
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a letter to the editor, not a research study; it offers opinion and informal observations, not study data. The author, from Kupat-Holim's Department of Occupational Medicine in Haifa, Israel, responded to a 1988 article by Castleman and Ziem on threshold limit values (TLVs). The author agreed that the way workplace exposure standards are set should be reconsidered. Drawing on personal experience, the author criticized the protracted change in the benzene TLV as lacking scientific justification. The author called the sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide TLVs inadequate and argued that sulfur dioxide deserved a "no exposure" limit. On asbestos, the author recalled the Haifa Department of Occupational Health's follow-up of a cohort exposed in the asbestos cement products industry. The author stated that the northern industrial region was the only one with definite data on damage in that industry. It also had indications of asbestos-related disease among personnel in the chemical industry, power stations and a regional hospital's maintenance section. The letter gave no numbers for these asbestos findings. The author questioned waiting for a similar experience with MMMF to prove or disprove Stanton's hypothesis of their possible harm.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Letter to the editor (opinion and informal observations from the author's personal experience; no study data)
• Who was studied: No study population. The letter refers in general terms to an exposed cohort in the asbestos cement products industry followed by the Haifa Department of Occupational Health in Israel. It gives no numbers or dates.
• Exposure: Asbestos in the asbestos cement products industry, with mention of the chemical industry, power stations and a hospital maintenance section. No fiber type is named. The letter also discusses MMMF (not spelled out in the letter), benzene, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, methyl isobutyl ketone and heavy lifting.
• Main results:
  • The author stated, without giving figures, that the northern industrial region of Israel was the only one with definite data on damage in the asbestos cement industry.
  • The author stated, without giving figures, that there were indications of asbestos-related disease among personnel in the chemical industry, power stations and a regional hospital's maintenance section.
  • The author described one worker with a probable case of toxicity associated with methyl isobutyl ketone, lasting two months. This is a single case, not a rate.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that the time has come to reconsider how workplace standards are set. The author also questioned whether it was justified to wait for an experience with MMMF similar to that with asbestos before Stanton's hypothesis of their possible harm could be proved or disproved.

Related studies

• Corporate influence on threshold limit values — B.I. Castleman, G.E. Ziem (1988)
• ACGIH TLVs: a critical analysis of the documentation — P.A. Breysse (1991)
• Asbestos-related diseases: time for technology sharing — K. Takahashi, Asian Asbestos Initiative (2008)
• Asbestos in Canada: time to change our legacy — T. Dummer, C. Gotay (2015)
• Re: "TLVs for asbestos" — G.V. Coles (1993)
• Re: "TLVs for asbestos" — T.F. Mancuso (1993)

Browse more research in American Journal of Industrial Medicine, or return to medical research.