MONITORING OF LEAD POISONING IN SIMPLE WORKERS OF A COPYING CENTER BY FLAME ATOMIC ABSORPTION SPECTROSCOPY

Inorganic lead compounds are used most widely in paint and pigment industries. Because of exposure to lead dust in workers in a copying center, we compared blood lead levels in these workers to normal individuals and investigated the relationship between job tenures of the workers and their blood lead levels. This survey was performed on 20 simple workers in a copying center of Tehran University. The ages of the workers were between 27 and 62 years, and job tenures of the workers were between I and 27 years. Our results indicated that 94% of the workers had high blood lead concentrations (>49.9 µg/dl) and only 6% showed acceptable (30-49.9 µg/dl) blood lead levels. Blood lead levels of these workers were significantly higher than that of controls (P<0.01). Their blood lead levels and job tenures showed a direct but imperfect correlation [coefficient of correlation (r)=0.68] and the confidence interval was between 0.3-1.36 (95% confidence). Clinical manifestations of intoxication in these workers included clumsiness, abdominal pain, lumbar pain and peripheral pain as main symptoms. The results of this study indicate that copying rooms are at high risk for lead poisoning.