Subject: OSHA Plans Rules To Protect Workers From AIDS Virus 
Date: Published: 5/24/89 (72 lines)
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

    Technology:  
    OSHA Plans Rules
    To Protect Workers
    From AIDS Virus
    ----   
    By Albert R. Karr
    Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

    WASHINGTON -- The Labor Department proposed rules aimed at
 protecting 5.3 million health-care and other workers from
 AIDS, the hepatitis B virus and other blood-borne diseases.
    The regulations would comprise the first specific standard
 covering biological hazards by the department's Occupational
 Safety and Health Administration.  They build on OSHA
 voluntary guidelines issued in 1983 and general mandatory
 regulations published in 1987.
    The proposed standard covers occupational exposure to
 blood, other body fluids and materials such as body tissue,
 organs and infected cells, which pose the threat of spreading
 infectious diseases.  It would require employers to evaluate
 routine workplace tasks that involve such exposure, identify
 workers who perform those tasks and use various methods to
 reduce the risk of spreading infection.
    These include observing so-called universal precautions
 prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control, a Health and
 Human Services Department unit.  Under those precautions, for
 example, blood and certain other body fluids of patients must
 be considered potentially infectious for acquired immune
 deficiency syndrome, hepatitis B and other blood-borne
 diseases.
    Methods include engineering controls, such as use of
 puncture-resistant containers for disposing of needles, and
 careful work practices, such as requiring workers to wash
 their hands if they have contact with blood or other
 potentially infectious substances.
    Employers would be required to offer hepatitis B vaccine
 free to workers who are exposed to the virus an average of at
 least once a month.  They also would have to train workers in
 how the diseases are transmitted and in how to control the
 viruses in the workplace, and they would have to provide
 protective equipment such as gloves and gowns.
    Workers who would be protected under the proposed standard
 include 4.7 million in hospitals, doctors' offices and other
 health-care facilities, and another 600,000 law enforcement,
 fire, prison, research, blood-bank and funeral-home workers.
    It estimated that workplace exposures cause as many as
 7,400 hepatitis B infections in the U. S. each year, including
 1,500 to 1,900 cases of clinical acute hepatitis, resulting
 in 300 to 400 hospitalizations and 130 to 165 deaths
 annually.
    Also, as many as 700 workers become hepatitis B virus
 carriers each year, risking long-term liver disease,
 cirrhosis, liver cancer and death, OSHA said.  Infected
 workers can spread the infection to others, including sexual
 partners and newborn children, it said.
    OSHA estimated the standard would prevent about 10,000
 infections and more than 200 deaths a year.
    AIDS infection involves a smaller hazard, but the number
 of AIDS cases in the general population is expected to grow
 in the next several years, OSHA said.
    It estimated the average annual cost of complying with the
 proposed rules as ranging from $141 a year for
 funeral-service firms to $32,875 a year for hospitals.

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