This issue of Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements includes papers presented at the Conference on Berylliumrelated Diseases held November 8-10, 1994, at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Beryllium is the lightest of all solid and chemically stable substances and is used in some form in the aerospace, nuclear, telecommunicat...

Exposure to beryllium compounds, both by inhalation and skin contact, may result in immune sensitization and chronic beryllium disease. The objective of the present research work was to study the feasibility of removing beryllium compounds from the surfaces of devices made of Be-Cu alloy and to estimate the frequency at which the surfaces had to be rubbed in order to evaluate the likelihood tha...

Due to the toxicity of beryllium compounds, the chemistry of beryllium is far less developed than that of its neighboring elements [1, 2]. As berylliumcontaining materials feature unique properties, most of the corresponding research is done in material sciences [3]. With regard to its toxicity, additional work is focused on the coordination chemistry of Be(II) in aqueous solutions [4, 5]. Thus...

This study investigated lung cancer and other diseases related to insoluble beryllium compounds. A cohort of 4950 workers from four US insoluble beryllium manufacturing facilities were followed through 2009. Expected deaths were calculated using local and national rates. On the basis of local rates, all-cause mortality was significantly reduced. Mortality from lung cancer (standardized mortalit...

I read with great interest the research articles by Strupp (2011a,b) ‘Beryllium Metal I’ and ‘Beryllium Metal II’ which were funded by the REACH Beryllium Consortium (2008), an industry group led by Brush Wellman Inc., the largest producer of beryllium in North America. I would like to comment on the author’s conclusion that beryllium metal is not a skin sensitizer and to caution readers on the...

It is shown that, when sputtered onto the surface of (111) Ir face in temperature range 1100-1250 K, beryllium atoms form a chemical compound stoichiometry 3 Be with concentration adsorbed N =5·10 14 cm -2 , after which newly deposited dissolve metal bulk. The itself destroyed due to dissolution 1250-1400 K an activation energy increasing from 3.2 eV 3.7 decreasing concentration. At T>14...

The toxicity of soluble metal compounds is often different from that of the parent metal. Since no reliable data on acute toxicity, local effects, and mutagenicity of beryllium metal have ever been generated, beryllium metal powder was tested according to the respective Organisation for Economical Co-Operation and Development (OECD) guidelines. Acute oral toxicity of beryllium metal was investi...

Toxic pulmonary disease from beryllium exposure first came to light in the 1930s, soon after the emergence of industrial uses of beryllium alloys. An early manufacturing application for beryllium compounds, as phosphors in fluorescent tubes, was the cause of some of the first known cases of chronic beryllium disease (CBD) (first termed “pulmonary granulomatosis of beryllium workers”). However, ...