title: Exposure levels for chemical threat compounds: information to facilitate chemical incident response.
abstract: Although not widely known, a robust set of peer-reviewed public health and occupational exposure levels presently exist for key chemical warfare agents (CWAs) and certain acutely toxic industrial chemicals (TICs) identified as terrorist attack threats. Familiarity with these CWA and TIC exposure levels and their historic applications has facilitated emergency management decision-making by public and environmental health decision-makers. Specifically, multiple air, soil, and water exposure levels for CWAs and TICs summarized here have been extensively peer-reviewed and published; many have been recognized and are in use by federal and state health agencies as criteria for hazard zone prediction and assessment, occupational safety, and "how clean is clean enough" decisions. The key, however, is to know which criteria are most appropriate for specific decisions. While public safety is critical, high levels of concern often associated with perceived or actual proximity to extremely toxic chemical agents could result in overly cautious decisions that generate excessive delays, expenditure of scarce resources, and technological difficulties. Rapid selection of the most appropriate chemical exposure criteria is recommended to avoid such problems and expedite all phases of chemical incident response and recovery.
authors: US Army Public Health Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, USA.
authors: Veronique D
authors: VD
authors: Hauschild
authors: Annetta
authors: A
authors: Watson
mesh_terms: D000062:Accidents, Occupational / Q000517:prevention & control*; D055884:Chemical Hazard Release / Q000145:classification / Q000517:prevention & control; D062067:Chemical Safety / Q000379:methods; D051337:Chemical Terrorism; D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000145:classification / Q000506:poisoning; D002959:Civil Defense / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration; D003666:Decontamination / Q000379:methods*; D004189:Disaster Planning / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D002619:Chemical Warfare Agents