Chemical Warfare Agents: Estimating Oral Reference Doses

How Clean is Safe? Improving the Effectiveness of Decontamination of Structures and People Following Chemical and Biological Incidents

“…It took about 3 hours and 20 min on two of the lines, and was completed 9.5 hours after the release occurred. On the third line it took about 15 hours and was completed 21 hours after the release (Watson 1998).…”

Evaluation of Chemical Warfare Agent Percutaneous Vapor Toxicity: Derivation of Toxicity Guidelines for Assessing Chemical Protective Ensembles.

“…It is acknowledged that the chemical and physical properties of agent VX differ from those of the G-series nerve agents (Sidell 1997;Opresko et al 1998;Munro et al 1994, others) and that the agentspecific dose to attain the same endpoint may thus differ. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that the relative differences in agent absorption exhibited between and among skin anatomic sites would be similar for all the nerve agents of interest, irrespective of agent-specific chemical and physical properties.…”

Interim Report on Lessons Learned from Decontamination Experiences

“…It took about 3 hours and 20 min on two of the lines, and was completed 9.5 hours after the release occurred. On the third line it took about 15 hours and was completed 21 hours after the release (Watson 1998 .The only decontamination that prevents or significantly reduces damage from a chemical agent is that done within the first several minutes: selfdecontamination. The importance of rapid self-decontamination cannot be overemphasized and must be clearly understood by anyone who might be exposed to chemical agents.…”

“…Disposal of contaminated water was a major problem in theBir@iamton state office building decontamination (Kii 1983). Using household bleach will help neutralize the contamination from chemical agents (Watson 1998). Pans and Dart\(1999) question the feasibility of controlling run-off fluids in a hospital environment.…”

“…Kii and Burr (2000) studied hospital responses to three hazardous material incidents in Utah and found secondary contamination to be a significant problem in two events. Secondary contamination was also a problem during the Tokyo subway attack in hospitals and for emergency workers (Watson 1998 .-A major issue concerns determining when a person is "clean. " Moles (1999) notes that full decontamination is not currently quantifiable because of the lack of standard protocols and ~.…”