Workplace Health.
What is Industrial Hygiene? Read this for a good explanation: Industrial Hygiene. Also look at the IH Code of Ethics , which you will need later in this module. There are several IH organizations, the most important for this course is the ACGIH, the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienist. Voting membership in the ACGIH is limited to employees of governments and academic institutions. For over 60 years the ACGIH has been promulgating workplaces standards for exposure to chemicals and other health hazards. The chemical exposure standards are known as TLV's, see what that means. Read it carefully, it explains important limitations.
The TLV's are updated regularly. The ACGIH has procedures for advising of proposed changes and receiving comments. While the voting members are not employees of or consultants to industry, industry is encouraged to submit comments on proposed changes. Unfortunately in some ways, despite its name, the ACGIH does not get government funds and supports itself partly with sales of the TLV booklet. I'll show you a sample page later. An ethical industrial hygienist will always work to the TLV's, since they are the most up-to-date and scientifically defensible standard. If there is a regulation however, that requires a more stringent standard, of course the IH will work to that standard.
OSHA was created in 1970 and at that time adopted the ACGIH TLV's and certain other accepted standards en mass, pending the promulgation of its own regulations. So initially all the chemical exposure standards were the same. Since then the two sets have drifted apart. It takes OSHA about 10 years to change a standard and those changes are subject to intense political and legal pressures. Its not uncommon when OSHA promulgates a new rule for both labor groups to sue arguing that the standard is too lax and industry sues that the standard is too strict. The OSHA standard is known as a PEL, Permissible Exposure Level. Here are the PEL's. Just scan it for now, we'll revisit it soon.
The key difference between the TLVs and the PELs is that the TLV is a recommendation, while the PEL is the law.
A third group that posits standards of exposure is NIOSH, the National Institute of Occupation Safety and Health. NIOSH was created by the same law as OSHA, but in a completely different branch of the government, the Public Health Service. Read a little about NIOSH. Although a branch of government, NIOSH can only make recommendations, these are called REL's, or Recommended Exposure Levels.
And the last we will talk about is the MAK of the DFG. The DFG is a German research organization and has a commission roughly equivalent of NIOSH. The MAKs are equivalent to the PELs. These are not in common use in the US but are used in the European Union and provide an independent comparison.