All,
Removal of particles from PPE has been studied for several years in the pharmaceutical industry. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, air showers were installed throughout the industry as a means to remove potent pharmaceutical powders from protective suits with little or no data on their efficacy. Syntex and Eli Lilly (independently) studied this through air and surface monitoring studies. I worked at Syntex at this time and we could never demonstrate that air showers worked for this purpose and it was troubling to think that it was possible that we were just spreading particles of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) around and/or imbedding particles into suits which were subject to shedding upon degowning. Air monitoring studies done in degowning rooms indicated that residual API could be present and available to breathe. It has been a design concept in the industry to "keep the degowning room clean at all times" to avoid creating an atmosphere that could lead to exposure where respirators and other PPE were taken off.
Beginning in the 1990s, more definitive (but to my knowledge unpublished) studies were undertaken that showed that a fine misting shower could remove particles more efficiently than air showers by a factor of as much as 25 fold. Additional data were generated on behalf of a misting shower vendor and their pharmaceutical client by SafeBridge in 2008. These studies confirmed what had been demonstrated by Eli Lilly in the 90s and by SafeBridge subsequently in actual testing in pharmaceutical working environments. Fine misting showers (using a minimum of water to first encapsulate particles and then lead to sheeting action to remove them from PPE) have become the standard in pharmaceutical potent compound manufacturing areas.
One vendor in the UK is PBSC Ltd.
http://www.pbsc.co.uk/decontamination-shower.asp
There are other US vendors but PBSC was part of the SafeBridge study. At the moment, I am not at liberty to share the paper generated on behalf of our client and I do not see it on their website.
Please email me privately if you would like more information.
Regards,
John
John P. Farris, CIH
Executive Consultant
SafeBridge Consultants, Inc.
1924 Old Middlefield Way
Mountain View, CA 94043
Tel: (650) 961-4820 ext. 229
Fax: (650) 623-0096
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From: control_banding_strategies**At_Symbol_Here**yahoogroups.com [mailto:control_banding_strategies**At_Symbol_Here**yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2016 10:22 AM
To: GlobalOccHyg List
Cc: AIHA Risk Assessment Committee; Control_Banding Strategies; OccHygPro List; Peter Zavon; Mark Williams; Stuart, Ralph
Subject: [Control_Banding_Strategies] [DCHAS-L] Air Showers
