Xref: utzoo sci.med:3984 sci.bio:862
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!husc6!bu-cs!bzs
From: bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: sci.med,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Eye disorders
Message-ID: <19170@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 24 Jan 88 16:46:54 GMT
References: <963@uop.edu>
Organization: Boston U. Comp. Sci.
Lines: 29
In-reply-to: todd@uop.edu's message of 24 Jan 88 00:49:57 GMT

Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.4 of Mon Mar 23 1987 on bu-cs (berkeley-unix)



>A friend of mine's grandfather was a worker in a ship yard when
>he was a younger man.
>
>Now it seems he has his vision failing.  We are guessing it is because
>of the arc welding he was around.
>
>My question is this.. can anything help him?

The first thing you might want to do is see if there exists a NIOSH
(Nat'l Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health) book on arc
welding, there probably is one. If there is even a strong suspicion of
the syndrome you allude to above they should discuss it and reprint
some papers in there. To get your hands on these try either a good
University (possibly medical) library, getting in touch with NIOSH
directly, calling OSHA (do they still exist?), or even calling a local
school of public health (often part of a medical school) and asking
for their Occupational Health dept or even epidemiology. They look
like Schaum's outlines physically (slightly oversize, softcovered) and
you should be able to get them from NIOSH for a nominal charge.

Armed with some information you might be able to make more progress,
perhaps get a copy for his doctor also. Former ship yard workers
should be interviewed about possible chronic asbestos exposure also
tho I don't believe the symptoms you describe are related to that, I
just figured I'd mention it while you're digging into his occupational
exposure(s).

	-Barry Shein, Boston University