The Senate Commission of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) on the Investigation of Health Hazards of Chemical Compounds in the Work Area has announced the 2003 Maximum Allowable Concentration (MAK) and Biological Tolerance Value (BAT) list and submitted it to the Federal Minister of Economics and Labour. It contains suggestions for MAK values, i.e. the maximum allowable concentration of a working substance in workplace air as a gas, steam or aerosol that according to current knowledge does not impair the health of employees exposed during eight-hour working days over the long-term. Furthermore, the working substances are classified according to their carcinogenic, germ cell mutagenic, reproduction-endangering, sensitising, and skin-absorptive effect. In total there were 61 changes and new entries as compared to the previous year.

This year the new criteria for the assessment of contact and inhaled allergens deserve particular notice. These new criteria are based on a variety of information sources for which a graded evaluation of their degree of evidence was performed. In this way, a significant improvement regarding the reproducibility and uniformity of allergen evaluation was achieved. The criteria have the character of guidelines and serve as a guide to a logical evaluation of the data. However, in special cases deviations from their strict application are possible.

Furthermore, the aerosol section was revised by adapting it to the current terminology in this field.

Based on epidemiological data, beryllium and its inorganic compounds have been classified as carcinogenic in humans and, therefore, were placed in carcinogenicity category 1. The mycotoxin ochratoxin A was proven to be carcinogenic in animal experiments and classified in carcinogenicity category 2.

The irritant gas and "familiar" environmentally harmful agent nitrogen dioxide was assigned to carcinogenicity category 3B as a suspected
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Contact: Prof. Dr. Helmut Greim
helmut.greim@lrz.tum.de
08161-71-5600
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
28-Jul-2003

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