EFFECT OF LEAD ON EMPLOYEES WORKING IN FLUX AND PRINTING PRESS

Awareness about the toxic effects of non-essential metals are still lacking in developing countries. Lead is one among them, which ranks second in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's top 20 lists of toxic metals.The more widespread environmental emissions of lead have been drastically reduced through the introduction of unleaded petrol . As a result, publicity about this common toxin has considerably diminished. However, there is still a problem from these sources in countries with less developed controls. Furthermore, there is still one source of lead regularly causing poisoning, namely colouring materials in printing and fluxes, on which this paper focuses. Lead poisoning has been known for centuries. Scientific studies of the harmful effects of lead exposure date to the 1700s. Lead concentrations of blood samples from printing industries in Rajajinagar were determined by meta-exchange reagent followed by Anodic Stripping Voltammetry. We have analyzed blood samples from 22 employees working in Flux and Printing press from Rajajinagar, the city of Bangalore to assess the feasibility of using the lead in solvents. Some of the solvents being used even now are known to contain this toxic metal at alarming levels. We have a list of persons who are quite often suffered from headaches and backaches.