NIOSH Alert: Request for Assistance in Preventing Organic Dust
Toxic Syndrome
CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) periodically issues alerts on workplace hazards that have
caused death, serious injury, or illness to workers. One such
alert, Request for Assistance in Preventing Organic Dust Toxic
Syndrome (1), was recently published and is available to the
public. *
This alert warns agricultural workers who inhale contaminated
organic dust that they can develop serious respiratory illness. One
of the most common illnesses is organic dust toxic syndrome (ODTS),
a respiratory and systemic illness that can follow exposures to
heavy concentrations of organic dusts contaminated with
microorganisms. An estimated 30%-40% of workers exposed to such
organic dusts will develop ODTS. The alert describes four incidents
in which 29 agricultural workers developed ODTS. Also described are
the various medical conditions that ODTS includes and the health
effects associated with the syndrome. The alert provides
recommendations for minimizing the risk for exposure to organic
dusts and for the use of respirators.
Reference
NIOSH. Request for assistance in preventing organic dust toxic
syndrome. Cincinnati: US Department of Health and Human Services,
Public Health Service, CDC, 1994; DHHS publication no.
(NIOSH)94-102.
Single copies of this document are available without charge from
the Publications Office, Division of Standards Development and
Technology Transfer, NIOSH, CDC, Mailstop C-13, 4676 Columbia
Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226-1998; telephone (800) 356-4674 ({513}
533-8328 for persons outside the United States); fax (513)
533-8573.
Disclaimer
All MMWR HTML versions of articles are electronic conversions from ASCII text into HTML. This conversion may have resulted in character translation or format errors in the HTML version. Users should not rely on this HTML document, but are referred to the electronic PDF version and/or the original MMWR paper copy for the official text, figures, and tables. An original paper copy of this issue can be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), Washington, DC 20402-9371; telephone: (202) 512-1800. Contact GPO for current prices.
**Questions or messages regarding errors in formatting should be addressed to mmwrq@cdc.gov.
