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PUBLIC HEALTH EFFECTS FROM INDUSTRIAL AMINES PRODUCTION, A PRELIMINARY EVALUATIVE APPROACH. VOLUME I
Citation:
Briggs, T., M. Karaffa, C. Sawyer, AND P. Spaite. PUBLIC HEALTH EFFECTS FROM INDUSTRIAL AMINES PRODUCTION, A PRELIMINARY EVALUATIVE APPROACH. VOLUME I. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/7-80/174A.
Description:
The report gives results of a study to assess the degree to which available data on health effects of chemical exposure, data from the National Cancer Institute, and information on production and use of classes of chemicals suspected of being carcinogenic might be used to identify possible cancer-related operations needing field investigation. The search for exposure intensity data confirmed that such data is not available from the open literature. Although published data are available on national production of some large-volume chemicals, site-specific data on such things as production rates, process losses, and process discharges are almost completely lacking. Until better sources of information are available, studies such as this will have to be supplemented with considerable field investigation to identify specific operations that are suitable for in-depth study. Until some way is established to develop such information so that it can be used with existing health data for identification of potential hazards, kepone and vinyl chloride incidents will continue to be dealt with after considerable damage has already been done. The data analysis techniques presented can be useful in identifying process discharges that must be studied in detail for definition of their potetial environmental impact.