by Caroline Miller, CIH, CSPThe National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) requests the public to provide feedback on the draft Current Intelligence Bulletin (CIB) The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards. The Agency will host a public meeting on May 23, 2017 to enable stakeholders to provide comments. Written comments will continue to be accepted until June 13, 2017.Currently, there are thousands of chemicals that do not have occupational exposure limits (OELs) established. It is not practical to assign OELs to every chemical or material that exists today. It is also not cost effective to assign OELs to research and development materials that may never be produced in a large quantity. Although OELs may not exist, employees’ exposures to these materials must be considered and appropriate protective measures be implemented. Where OELs do not currently exist, chemicals can be placed into categories or occupational exposure bands (OEBs) based upon actual or estimated health effects. There are five OEBs (A through E), with the lowest toxicity in Band A and the highest toxicity in Band E. The OEBs would then be used to target controls for protecting worker health.The NIOSH method includes a three-tiered system that is based on data availability and quality and user training and proficiency. Tier 1 uses hazard classifications and hazard codes from the Globally Harmonized System for Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS). It is intended that Tier 1 evaluations can be performed with little information and training. However, it should be determined whether the evaluation should move up to a Tier 2 (requires a review of toxicological information) or Tier 3 (necessitates expert judgement).In the Federal Register notice requesting the public feedback, NIOSH is asking for opinions on various issues, including how to handle exposures below the OEBs for chemicals that can cause an immediate effect and skin toxicants that are corrosive, an irritant, or a sensitizer; what information sources should be included and how they should be assessed; and how the agency should account for structural analogs or related chemicals data gathered for the banding process.References:Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NIOSH. “Draft Current Intelligence Bulletin: The Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards; Notice of Public Meeting; Request for Comments.” Federal Register 82 (15 March 2017): https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2017-03-15/pdf/2017-05115.pdfCDC, NIOSH. “The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards.” NIOSH Docket Number 290, CDC-2017-0028 (March 2017): https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/review/docket290/default.htmlHHS, CDC, NIOSH, “The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Banding Process: Guidance for the Evaluation of Chemical Hazards – External Review Draft.” March 8, 2017: https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/review/docket290/pdfs/clean-cib-niosh-oebprocess-guidancefortheevaluationofchemicalhazards_3.8.17.pdf