Sound the Alarm
Should We Be Worried
about Wood Dust Exposures?
BY MARTIN HARPER
If more than two million workers were found to be exposed above an occupational exposure limit in Eu- rope, and a similar number were likely to be overexposed in the
United States and Canada—not to
mention an undetermined number
in other countries—wouldn’t we be
alarmed? This is the current situation with wood dust.
Many of us who have enjoyed carpentry, at school in wood shop or at home
as hobbyists, have experienced the tickly
effect of inhaling wood dust. Perhaps we
dismissed this effect because of the
pleasing odor of liberated resins and
other chemicals from freshly cut wood.
However, many millions of workers
worldwide are exposed to wood dust on
a daily basis, frequently at high concentrations. Only rarely has this exposure
been considered more than a nuisance.
Health Effects and Risk
Exposure to wood dust has been implicated in nonmalignant respiratory diseases including obstructive disease of the
lower airways and reactive disease of the
upper airways. Dozens of studies have
been published, along with several re-
views. In developing its threshold limit
value (TLV®) for wood dust, ACGIH®1 in-
cluded only studies in which exposure
was to wood dust rather than to exoge-
nous chemicals, such as formaldehyde,
isocyanates, or other chemicals with a
known respiratory effect, and only stud-
ies for which dust concentrations were
measured and reported. Even with these
restrictions, ACGIH could still draw from
studies in many countries including
Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Eng-
land and Wales, the U.S., Canada, Aus-
tralia, New Zealand and Taiwan. In some
cases, multiple studies originated in a
single country.
