by Brianna Crandall — March 10, 2014—Occupational and environmental health organization ACGIH (the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists) has released its 2014 editions of the TLVs and BEIs, which are guidelines on chemical exposure levels in the workplace for use by industrial hygiene professionals, and the accompanying Guide to Occupational Exposure Values. The chemicals covered include those that workers are exposed to in manufacturing, cleaning processes and laboratories, and similar workplaces.
The information in the user-friendly, pocket-sized TLVs and BEIs book is used worldwide as a guide for evaluation and control of workplace exposures to chemical substances and physical agents. Threshold Limit Value (TLV) occupational exposure guidelines are recommended for more than 700 chemical substances and physical agents, and there are more than 50 Biological Exposure Indices (BEIs) that cover more than 80 chemical substances. Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) registry numbers are listed for each chemical. Introductions to each section and appendices provide philosophical bases and practical recommendations for using the TLVs and BEIs.
Guide to Occupational Exposure Values
The Guide to Occupational Exposure Values is a companion document to the ACGIH TLVs and BEIs book and serves as a readily accessible reference for comparison of the most recently published values: 2014 Chemical Substance TLVs from ACGIH; AIHA Workplace Environmental Exposure Limits (WEELs); the OSHA Final Rule PELs; RELs from NIOSH; MAKs from the German Commission for the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Workplace; and carcinogenicity designations from ACGIH, OSHA, NIOSH, MAK, IARC, U.S. NTP, and U.S. EPA. The Guide also includes a CAS number index.
