Chemicals are a part of everyone's life. There are five to seven million different chemicals known in the world. At least 400 million tons of chemicals are produced worldwide each year including agricultural chemicals, food additives, pharmaceuticals, fuels for power production, chemical consumer products, etc.

The frightening reality is for the vast majority of these chemicals, little or nothing is known about their possible immediate or long-term effects on the health of the workers who produce them or use them.

According to OSHA, each year illnesses from exposure to these chemicals kill nearly 50,000 people.

To help protect these workers, OSHA requires employers to have in place a comprehensive hazard communications plan in addition to a training program addressing workplace specific chemicals.

These policies are proven to reduce the likelihood of injury and save employers billions.

More than twenty years ago, in 1976, a Congressional committee prepared a report titled "Chemical Dangers in the Workplace." This report stated that "the threat posed to the health of workers by toxic substances ... causes an estimated 100,000 deaths and 390,000 illnesses every year."

The report noted that "most of these tragedies result from exposure to toxic substances, especially chemicals, in the workplace." The report concluded that "advances in the American standard of living have been achieved at great cost to one group -- workers who are exposed to toxic chemicals as they do their jobs."

Many of these deaths and injuries are not reported in annual figures, because the effects of the chemicals are a slow process and a result of many years of exposure.

Regardless of the amount of safety training, accidents will occur in the workplace. To handle accidents, OSHA requires employers to have in place a first aid policy.

This policy requires the employer has an adequate first aid kit, training on first aid procedures and more.

However, it is not only the direct effects of these chemicals that can cause workplace tragedy.

For example, chemicals such as solvents and asphyxiates may slow your reaction time by affecting your nervous system or limiting the amount of oxygen that gets to your lungs.

A retarded reaction can be very serious (or even fatal) if you are in a dangerous situation that requires an immediate response. Unfortunately, when accidents occur in the workplace, management often blames the affected worker, claiming he or she was careless.

The sheer number of those injuries is staggering, and the financial impact they place on employers is overwhelming.

An annual study conducted by the Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety in 2010, revealed that the direct cost to employers from injuries in 2008 was $53.42 billion. [1]

Furthermore the study concluded that accidents at the workplace were estimated to cost employers an additional $80 to $200 billion annually.

A second report by the U.S. Department of Labor cemented the finding of the insurance groups report. This report stated the average workplace injury cost an employer $43,000. The same study estimated the cost from wage replacement due to injury to be roughly $50 billion a year.

"An accident at the workplace can often be the difference between operating in the black and falling into the red," said Safety Services CEO Devon Dickenson.

Chemical Example	Toxic Property	Part of body affected	Time Scale of appearance	Effect
Ammonia, sulfuric acid, nitrogen oxides, caustic soda	Irritant or corrosive	Any, but usually the eyes, lungs and skin	A few minutes to several days	Inflammation, burns and blisters of exposed area. Frequently healed after acute expo- sure. Chronic exposure may lead to perma- nent damage.
Bauxite dust, as- bestos, bagasse	Fibrogenic	Generally lungs	Years	Gradual cumulative loss of lung function leading to disability and death if there is chronic exposure.
Toluene, di-isocya- nate (TDI), amine hardeners for epoxy resins.	Allergic	Any, but frequently lungs and skin	Days to years	In lungs may lead to chronic asthma-like disease and permanent disability. In skin may produce industrial dermatitis.
Strong acids, alka- lis, detergents, car- bon tetrachloride, trichloroethylene.	Dermatitic	Skin	Days to years	Inflamed, peeling skin rashes. May result from chronic exposure to irritants, aller- genic agents, solvents or detergents.
2-Naphthylamine, certain tars and oils, benzidine, asbestos	Carcinogenic	Any organs, skin, lungs, bladder	10 to 40 years	Cancer in affected organ or tissue. Ultimate- ly this may cause premature death.
Carbon tetrachlo- ride, mercury, cadmium, carbon monoxide, hydro- gen cyanide.	Poisonous	Any organs but fre- quently liver, brain, kidney	A few minutes to many years	Death of cells in vital organis with even- tula failure of organ to carry out important biological functions. Ultimately can cause death.
Acetylene, carbon dioxide	Asphyxiants	Lungs	Minutes	Gases replace normal oxygen content of air

The physical form of a chemical can affect how it enters your body and to some extent, the damage it causes. The main physical forms of chemicals are solids, dusts, liquids, vapors and gases.

Solid forms are the least dangerous. Yet many can still cause severe health issues. For example wood being cut can turn into wood dust. Welding rods can decompose into fumes and gases. Polyurethane foam is safe in its normal solid form but gives off deadly gases if it burns.

Chemicals in solid form can also give off toxic vapors that are both explosive and corrosive to the skin.

Dusts are tiny particles of solids.

Your employees face exposure from dust in the workplace from materials that can float in the air. For example dropping a bag of cement or working with glass fiber causes dust to fly up around you.

The main danger from harmful dusts is inhalation. Larger particles are usually trapped by hairs and mucus in the nose and then removed by the body. However, smaller particles get past this defense and get deep inside the lungs with damaging effects,

Many hazardous substances, such as acids and solvents, exist as liquids in their normal state.

Many of these liquids give off highly toxic vapors. Liquid chemical can also come into contact with the causing immediate surface damage. Other liquids can pass through the skin into the bloodstream where they can do greater damage.

Some chemical substances are a gas when at a normal temperature. However, some chemicals in liquid or solid form can also become gases when they are heated.

Gases can typically be detected by smell, but there are other gases that you cannot smell at all -you can only detect them with special equipment. They produce irritant effects immediately. The health effects of other gases may be noticeable only after your health has already been seriously damaged.

Gases may be flammable or explosive. Extreme caution should be used when working around flammable or explosive gases.