[Guidelines for the use of the International Classification of Radiographs of Pneumoconioses of the International Labour Office (ILO): Substantial changes in the currrent edition].

The International Classification of Radiographs of Pneumoconioses is the scheme worked out by the International Labour Office in Geneva (ILO), to register radiographic chest abnormalities in a well-ordered, reproducible and comparable way. It is used for diagnosing abnormalities caused by dust exposure. Guidelines for the use of the ILO International Classification of Radiographs of Pneumoconioses contain detailed information and recommendations on how to use the classification, as well as how the chest X-ray examination should be performed and recorded.

Environmental lead exposure in Polish children: blood lead levels, major sources and principles of the lead poisoning prevention.

In Poland, children are exposed to lead from the combustion of leaded gasoline and industrial processes. Since the early 1990s, emission levels have declined, and a ban on leaded petrol is anticipated in 2005. Major industrial sources are located in Silesia Province and the copper mining centre (Legnica region).

Environmental burden of disease due to lead in urban children from Silesia, Poland.

We performed environmental burden of disease (EBD) assessment of the neurotoxic effects of lead in the Polish urban children, in accordance with the WHO guidelines. The EBD assessment was based on the data on blood lead levels (BLL) of more than 8500 children from the lead biomonitoring programme conducted in the urban centre of the Upper Silesia Province, Poland between 1993 and 2000. In order to make the EBD assessment region specific, in the projections to years 2001 and 2005 we used 4% annual decrease in BLL, derived from the earlier analysis of the Silesian BLL data instead of the WHO proposed 7.

Urinary mercury in adults in Poland living near a chloralkali plant.

We conducted a study within the framework of the interdisciplinary European Mercury Emission from Chloralkali Plants (EMECAP) project to assess exposure to mercury (Hg) and the contribution of Hg emissions from a mercury cell chloralkali plant to urinary mercury (U-Hg) in adults living near the plant. We collected data from questionnaires and first morning urine samples from 75 subjects living near the Tarnow plant in Poland and 100 subjects living in a reference area. Median U-Hg was 0.