[MCOH-EH] [EXTERNAL] Allergen testing

[Hodgson, Michael - OSHA]

Hi, all
Cc'ed here is Bill Martin, and occupational medicine resident from Duke rotating through OSHA. He recently presented a follow-up survey that he completed with Dr. Stave on the current state of affairs in animal research facilities.  They completed a follow-up survey to what Dr. States had done some years ago. The presentation led to a lengthy discussion on what we know about engineering design and operations and maintenance in animal labs.  And then there's the whole work practices and PPE issue.  Without thinking about those, our discussion went here, "sampling" isn't so useful. People will generally remember that predictors of sensitization, i.e., peak exposures, co-exposures to endotoxin, and the presence of irritants such as ammonia likely all influence "acceptability" of antigen levels.

He and I discussed whether it was possible for this group, or this group overlapping with Phil Harber's academic safety and health text, to develop some set of categories that everyone could start classifying and using.

From: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh-bounces+hodgson.michael=dol.gov at mylist.net> On Behalf Of Jakub Furmaga via MCOH-EH
Sent: Tuesday, April 4, 2023 5:36 PM
To: 'MCOH-EH' <mcoh-eh at mylist.net>
Cc: Jakub Furmaga <jfurmaga at me.com>
Subject: Re: [MCOH-EH] [EXTERNAL] Allergen testing

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Thank you for the responses.

AAALAC did not ask for allergen testing, they just asked what respiratory protection we were providing to our animal care workers. Unfortunately, as part of the report we included some measured allergen concentrations which prompted questions about how the testing was done, and what reference numbers we used (I know, we totally walked into that one). We did not have great answers which is why I wanted to see what everyone else is doing.

Jakub

On Apr 3, 2023, at 7:05 PM, hudson.warner at gmail.com<mailto:hudson.warner at gmail.com> wrote:


While at UCLA we did have the campus CIH do a study of the animal lab areas
to see where the highest levels of rat and mouse protein in air were found,
really to guide improvements in use of better practices to reduce said
antigen exposure not to look at the levels as a cutoff although some were at
the old level of well above 5ng/cubic meter by a lot; cage changing and cage
washing areas. The rest were well below. I understand the 5 ng level is no
longer considered to be a threshold and never had solid data behind it to
begin with; so while lower seems better; there may not be a no sensitizing
level or dose but this was but 10 years ago when we did this study and it
did result in improvements in those areas identified. Warner

-----Original Message-----
From: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh-bounces at mylist.net<mailto:mcoh-eh-bounces at mylist.net>> On Behalf Of Swift, Melanie D.,
M.D., M.P.H. via MCOH-EH
Sent: Monday, April 3, 2023 7:27 AM
To: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh at mylist.net<mailto:mcoh-eh at mylist.net>>
Cc: Swift, Melanie D., M.D., M.P.H. <Swift.Melanie at mayo.edu<mailto:Swift.Melanie at mayo.edu>>
Subject: Re: [MCOH-EH] [EXTERNAL] Allergen testing

Jakub,
Our safety colleagues recently looked into this and did a fairly deep dive.
My understanding is that air sampling for animal allergens is really not yet
ready for practice, but is more of a research tool at this point. Special
equipment is required and there are no standards or norms, so it would be a
little like doing air quality testing for mold spores without having an
outdoor control or comparison test. You can do particulate sampling as a
proxy of sorts, which is more standard and I think there are some reference
values for dust levels.

Out of curiosity, who is asking you to do air sampling for allergens? If
AAALAC is starting to request this, I'd be concerned about the potential
impact of that for other institutions.
Best,
Melanie

-----Original Message-----
From: MCOH-EH <mcoh-eh-bounces at mylist.net<mailto:mcoh-eh-bounces at mylist.net>> On Behalf Of Jakub Furmaga via
MCOH-EH
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2023 2:30 PM
To: mcoh-eh at mylist.net<mailto:mcoh-eh at mylist.net>
Cc: Jakub Furmaga <jfurmaga at me.com<mailto:jfurmaga at me.com>>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] [MCOH-EH] Allergen testing

I work at a large academic medical center that has several animal research
labs. We were recently asked to do allergen air testing/monitoring, and
wanted to see if anyone here has experience with this. If so, which
allergens do you test and what concentrations do you use. Thank you.

Jakub

Jakub Furmaga, MD
Faculty in Medical Toxicology
Medical Director of Occupational Health
UT Southwestern


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