The Rocky Flats Beryllium Health Surveillance Program (BHSP), initiated in June 1991, was designed to provide medical surveillance for current and former employees exposed to beryllium. The BHSP identifies individuals who have developed beryllium sensitivity using the beryllium lymphocyte proliferation test (BeLPT). A detailed medical evaluation to determine the prevalence of chronic beryllium ...

Beryllium is a lightweight metal with unique qualities related to stiffness, corrosion resistance, and conductivity. While there are many useful applications, researchers in the 1930s and 1940s linked beryllium exposure to a progressive occupational lung disease. Acute beryllium disease is a pulmonary irritant response to high exposure levels, whereas chronic beryllium disease (CBD) typically r...

Beryllium succinate dihydrate [Be(C4H4O4)](H2O)2 is formed in the reaction of equimolar quantities of beryllium sulfate, succinic acid and barium hydroxide in aqueous solution at pH 3.2. Sodium, potassium, and ammonium bis(succinato)beryllates M2[Be(C4H4O4)2] are obtained using the same reagents in the molar ratio 1:2:1 and adjusting the pH to 6.3-6.5 with NaOH, KOH or concentrated aqueous ammo...

Beryllium is the fourth element in the periodic table and the second lightest metal known. Discovered as an oxide in 1798 by the French chemist L. N. Vauquelin, beryllium was first isolated in 1828, when it was called "glucinium" owing to the sweet taste of its salts. Beryllium is the lightest of all solid, chemically stable substances and has an unusually high melting point (12870C). Silver gr...

The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex is a series of genes located on chromosome 6 that are important in normal immune function. Susceptibility to chronic beryllium disease, a granulomatous lung disease that appears in workers exposed to beryllium, is modified by genetic variants of the HLA-DP subregion. Evaluation of HLA-DPB1 sequence motifs in current and former beryllium workers implicat...

Within recent years a number of reports have appeared demonstrating the toxicity of beryllium in humans and animals. Relatively little is known, however, about the mode of action of beryllium in the body. Klemperer, Miller, and Hill (l), as well as Crier, Hood, and Hoagland (2), have demonstrated an inhibitory action of beryllium on alkaline phosphatase and have suggested the possibility that t...

BACKGROUND The nuclear weapons industry has long been known as a source of beryllium exposure. METHODS A total of 1,004 former workers from a nuclear weapons assembly site in the Midwest were screened for sensitization to beryllium (BeS). The screenings were part of the Department of Energy (DOE) Former Worker Program established in 1996. RESULTS Twenty-three (2.3%) workers were found sensi...

Chronic beryllium disease (CBD) is caused by workplace exposure to beryllium and is characterized by the accumulation of memory CD4+ T cells in the lung. These cells respond vigorously to beryllium salts in culture by producing proinflammatory Th1-type cytokines. The presence of these inflammatory cytokines leads to the recruitment of alveolar macrophages, alveolitis, and subsequent granuloma d...

We conducted a medical screening for beryllium disease of 577 former workers from a beryllium processing facility. The screening included a medical and work history questionnaire, a chest radiograph, and blood lymphocyte proliferation testing for beryllium. A task exposure and a job exposure matrix were constructed to examine the association between exposure to beryllium and the development of ...

ABSTRCT Toxic effects of beryllium salts on the reproductive organs of cyclic adult female albino rats have been studied. An attempt was made to overcome these effects using an Ayurvedic medicine Liv.52 (The Himalaya Drug Co., Bombay). Liv.52-primed rats (1 mL/rat/day for 15 days) were exposed to beryllium nitrate intravenously and were sacrificed at different time intervals. At autopsy ovary, ...