Worker reentry safety. II. The viewpoint and program of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Abstract

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) was established by the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 which became effective on April 28, 1971. Relatively shortly thereafter, during the latter part of 1971 to be exact, NIOSH became interested in the various means of achieving protection of agricultural workers from the potentially harmful effects of pesticides. As you recall, DDT and other environmentally persistent organochlorine insecticides had been under attack for some time and it was a rather widely held opinion among scientists and other interested parties that DDT would be banned for crop protection, either partially or completely, in the near future. NIOSH along with other federal government departments and agencies realized that DDT, if banned for crop protection, would be replaced by the less environmentally persistent but generally more acutely toxic organophosphorus (OP) and carbamate (C) insecticides. The suspicion that a sudden increase in the use of more acutely toxic compounds might result in an increase, even possibly epidemics, of pesticide poisonings caused us to focus attention on agricultural worker protection.