02/14/05 Cholinesterase monitoring expansion, Pt1

02/14/05 Cholinesterase monitoring expansion, Pt1

There was some concern among Washington State's ag industry as the Labor and Industry Department last year implemented its cholinesterase monitoring program among farm workers. The concern was that the program was being rushed without accurate scientific study or structure in place for the blood testing program designed to detect the amount of illness among those workers handling farm pesticides. MAYER: The program applied to pesticide handlers that handled organophosphates or carbamate pesticide materials for at least fifty hours in any thirty day consecutive period of time. The farmworker then was able to choose to participate in the program or to opt out. That's Kirk Mayer of the Washington Growers Clearing House. And he is among those expressing concerns that the testing program, as of this month in its second year of operation, is not quite there yet. That's because L and I announced that starting the beginning of this month the time threshold for workers who handled pesticides would decrease. By reducing the number of hours from fifty last year to thirty this year & the number of participating farmworkers is expected to increase. But Mayer says questions remain about the information that led to L and I's decision to drop the number of threshold hours. More on that in our next program.
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