Iron Industry Workers: Health Hazards and Biomonitoring

Occupational exposure to different sets of chemical agents in iron industries pose a major carcinogenic risk. Majority of the human cancers are known to arise as a direct consequence of environmental and occupational exposure to mutagenic and carcinogenic agents. Iron industry workers including welders, foundry workers, grinders and managers are exposed to a number of factors including gases, fumes and various nascent metals. There is a need of regular biomonitoring studies to detect the health effects of various occupational exposures in these workers. In this book an attempt has been made to emphasize various health hazards to iron industry workers under different job categories and to assess the genotoxicity using comet assay and buccal micronucleus test; and oxidative stress using estimation of malondialdehyde among iron industry workers.