Hazards magazine accused the UK Government of inconsistency and lack of caution when it revised chemical exposure standards in 2000. It also pointed out that the maximum exposure safety thresholds were often much lower in many other European countries and North America. Some examples:

• the UK maximum exposure level (MEL) for arsenic was 0.1mg per cubic metre. This was thought to give workers a 1 in 15 chance of dying from arsenic poisoning across a 35-year working lifetime. The MEL for beryllium was set to give a 1 in 1250 chance of dying over a 35-year working lifetime. Why the difference?

• The Dutch Government has adopted a single standard of an exposure level leading to the death of 1 in 10,000 workers exposed, and is trying, where possible, to improve that to 1 in a million

• Whereas Australia’s safety board NICNAS has classified the industria l solvent trichloroethylene as a carcinogenic and possible mutagenic (and beaten off attempts by Dow Chemicals to overturn this decision through the courts), the UK’s Health & Safety Executive does not produce any information sheet about its use - despite 20 years of campaigning by the unions to replace it with safer alternatives

As the UK does not routinely use international risk assessments to set its safety limits, it is necessary to go onto the internet for this information. A good site is the Toxicological Excellence for Risk Assessment site: www.tera.org