[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 15 (Monday, January 24, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 4115-4116]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-1301]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[Docket Number NIOSH-156]
Request for the Technical Review of the Draft Current
Intelligence Bulletin (CIB): Derivation of Immediately Dangerous to
Life and Health (IDLH) Values
AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS).
ACTION: Notice of public comment period.
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SUMMARY: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is
conducting a public review of the draft, Current Intelligence Bulletin
(CIB): Derivation of Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH)
Values. NIOSH is requesting technical review of the draft CIB. The
draft document and instructions for submitting comments can be found at
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/review/docket156/default.html.
Public Comment Period: Comments must be received by March 15, 2011.
A public meeting to be convened either in Cincinnati, Ohio or via
Teleweb may be scheduled at a date and time to be announced later if
determined to be necessary. This public meeting will be announced via a
subsequent notice.
ADDRESSES: Written comments, identified by docket number NIOSH-156, may
be submitted by any of the following ways:
Mail: NIOSH Docket Office, Robert A. Taft Laboratories,
MS-C34, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226.
Facsimile: (513) 533-8285.
E-mail: [email protected].
All information received in response to this notice will be
available for public examination and copying at the NIOSH Docket
Office, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Room 111, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226. A
complete electronic docket containing all comments submitted will be
available on the NIOSH Web page at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket, and
comments will be available in writing by request. NIOSH includes all
comments received without change in the docket, including any personal
information provided. All electronic comments should be formatted as
Microsoft Word. Please make reference to docket number NIOSH 156.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: G. Scott Dotson, NIOSH, Robert A. Taft
Laboratories, MS-C32, 4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226,
telephone (513) 533-8540.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 1974, the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration (OSHA) jointly initiated the development of
occupational health standards consistent with Section 6(b) of the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 for substances with then-
existing OSHA permissible exposure limits (PELs). This joint effort was
called the Standards Completion Program (SCP). As part of the
respirator selection process for each draft technical standard,
Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health (IDLH) values were determined
for each chemical. The purpose of deriving an IDLH value was to provide
guidance on respirator selection and to establish a maximum exposure
concentration in
[[Page 4116]]
which workers, in the event of respiratory protection failure (e.g.,
contaminant breakthrough in a cartridge respirator or stoppage of air
flow in a supplied-air respirator), could escape safely when the
exposure was below the IDLH value.
Since the establishment of the original IDLH values in 1974, NIOSH
has continued to review the available scientific data to improve the
protocol used to derive the acute exposure guidelines, in addition to
the chemical-specific IDLH values. This draft CIB represents the most
recent update of the scientific rationale and process used to derive
IDLH values based on health effects considerations determined through a
critical assessment of the toxicology and human health effects data.
The new process relies on a weight-of-evidence approach based on
scientific judgment for establishing IDLH values that allows for the
critical evaluation of the quality and consistency of the scientific
data, and in extrapolation from the available data to the IDLH value.
The weight-of-evidence approach refers to the critical examination of
all the available data from diverse lines of evidence and the
derivation of a scientific interpretation based on the collective body
of data including its relevance, quality and reported results.
Guidelines are presented to aid in the selection of the critical
adverse effect, a point of departure (POD) or the point on the dose-
response curve from which dose extrapolation is initiated, and applying
default uncertainty factors (UFs) to derive the IDLH value.
Conceptually, the derivation process presented in this CIB is similar
to that used in other risk assessment applications including the
process steps of:
Hazard characterization,
Identification of critical adverse effects,
Identification of a POD,
Application of an appropriate UF based on the study and
POD, and
Determination of the final risk value.
Supplemental information included within this draft CIB includes
(1) An overview of the literature search strategy used to identify
relevant data, (2) the scheme used to prioritize and select chemicals
for which an IDLH value will be established and (3) an overview of the
analysis applied by NIOSH to develop a scientifically-based approach
for the selection of the UF during the derivation of IDLH values. In
addition, Appendix A of the draft CIB presents an example of the
derivation of an IDLH value for vinyl acetate (CAS 108-50-4)
based on the new process.
Dated: January 13, 2011.
John Howard,
Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2011-1301 Filed 1-21-11; 8:45 am]
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