As I failed to mention in my earlier post - the problem with a registry is that many (most, in my personal experience) American histotechnologists are completely uncertified, and would not appear in any registry. One would hazard a guess that these uncertified techs get the most xylene exposure.
Bob Richmond ***************************************** On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Bob Richmond <rsrichm...@gmail.com> wrote: > What's badly needed is a registry of death certificates of > histotechnologists. The thing I'd want to examine would be the > prevalence of myeloid leukemia and related diseases - known to be > elevated in workers exposed to benzene. If such a correlation were > found, it would mandate eliminating xylene from histology and cytology > labs, and increasing precautions for handling resinous mounting media. > > The American Medical Association maintains such a registry of American > physicians (or used to). It was used to establish that exposure to > ionizing radiation (fluoroscopes and other X-ray equipment) was > correlated with deaths from myeloid leukemia. Pathologists didn't have > any particular problems - here I'd wonder about formaldehyde exposure > and upper airway cancer. Pathologists get more exposure to > formaldehyde than do histotechnologists. > > Bob Richmond > Samurai Pathologist > Knoxville TN _______________________________________________ Histonet mailing list Histonet@lists.utsouthwestern.edu http://lists.utsouthwestern.edu/mailman/listinfo/histonet