Occupational risks in the rubber industry

Important epidemiologic findings have resulted in safer work conditions over the past decades. Maintaining this improvement in worker risk requires continued epidemiological surveillance for unrecognized dangers and intense enforcement of industrial hygiene principles. It also demands an enhanced clinical suspicion and a low threshold for clinical diagnosis of potentially attributable health problems in workers whose workplace chemical environment is in continual evolution. Clinicians should be familiar with the known associations of work and disease, and remain alert to the possibility of chemically mediated disease in workers exposed to this highly complex mixture of chemical agents.