Accidental Release of Chemical Warfare Agents: Risk Assessment Implications of Changes in Health Criteria Levels. H. M. Hartmann, M. A. Lazaro, and Y.-S. Chang, Argonne National Laboratory
Over a decade ago, the U.S. Army compiled acute toxicity guideline levels for chemical warfare agents for use in assessing potential impacts of proposed federal actions, and for emergency preparedness planning. The Army has reviewed the early acute toxicity guideline levels and has recommended revisions to the values for protecting combat soldiers. The National Research Council (NRC) recently reviewed the Army’s recommended revisions. In some instances, the NRC agreed with the recommended changes, while in others it suggested either lowering or raising the guideline levels. The NRC also concluded that many of the proposed agent guideline levels are based on a limited toxicity database and noted that new toxicity testing in humans or animals might be required to establish accurate and protective levels for both soldier and general public exposures. With this as background, our presentation will review and compare the existing and newly proposed health criteria levels used to estimate impacts from chemical nerve agents (e.g., VX and GB) and the mustard blister agents H, HD, and HT. Appropriate adjustments to account for variations in experimental exposure time and sensitive subpopulations will be discussed. The results of a comparative analysis will be presented, showing differences in predicted downwind distances and numbers of predicted fatalities corresponding to the existing and revised health criteria levels.
Work supported under a military interdepartmental purchase request from the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Army, through U.S. Department of Energy contract W-31-109-Eng-38.
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