Publications by authors named "F Valic"

The asbestos dilemma: II. The ban.

Arh Hig Rada Toksikol

September 2002

This article reviews the history of legal steps which led to conflicting regulatory approaches to the use of asbestos between the EU, the US and the rest of the world. Particular attention is paid to the EU ruling out the use of all types of asbestos. The author criticizes how the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment of the European Commission altered their own opinion within as short a time as seven months, and points out the weaknesses of the scientific justification for the EU ban.

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This paper gives a critical review of current problems related to quantitative health risk assessment of exposure to asbestos, and particularly to chrysotile, the only type of asbestos still available on the market. The paper reviews types, sources, uses and the main recognised health effects of asbestos, paying particular attention to the health-related properties of fibres and the role of their biopersistence. The main focus is on yet unresolved issues which introduce a large margin of uncertainty into the published quantitative risk assessments: 1) Are all asbestos types equally dangerous or is chrysotile asbestos less dangerous than amphiboles? 2) Are health effects of asbestos fibres threshold or non-threshold effects? 3) Are errors in mathematical modelling of risks so great as to make the risk evaluations worthless? Attention is also given to errors in estimates of past exposures, uncertainties and unspecificities of models and to the unfeasibility of practical application of some well recognized risk assessment models.

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A survey of experimentally and/or epidemiologically proved effects of most frequent insoluble airborne fibres is presented. The most important health-related properties of fibres, important in the quantitative health risk assessment and prognosis, are described. The difference is emphasized between the effects of various asbestos types as well as the difference of toxicity and carcinogenicity between carcinogenic asbestos fibres and the fibres recommended as substitutes for asbestos.

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Byssinosis as a nonspecific chronic respiratory disease in textile workers exposed to cotton, hemp and flax is described. Pathogenesis and ethiologic factors responsible for bissynosis are listed. Clinical symptoms of byssinosis and differential diagnosis with occupational asthma are presented.

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In January 1996, the Government of Croatia and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) signed an agreement on the phasing out of ozone-depleting substances in Croatia, making the problem of identifying adequate substitutes a high priority. In this paper, the main ecologic characteristics of chlorine-containing fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and partially halogenated chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) compared with chlorine-free hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) are presented. The data showed HCFCs to be ecologically more acceptable than CFCs, particularly regarding the ozone-depleting potential (ODP), and have therefore been proposed as substitutes for CFCs.

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