Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“ Human studies of CCP have dealt mostly with exposures in office settings. Three types of human studies of CCP have been conducted: individual case studies or case series, cross-sectional studies, and laboratory studies in humans. The following sections separately review each type of study.
4.2.1 Published Case Reports and Case Series
The case report is a detailed profile of a single subject; case series describe the characteristics of a number of patients with a given disease. Case reports and series document unusual features of a disease or a patient’s exposure history ”

“ The OR was not increased for a set of control symptoms included to detect overreporting associated with risk factors of possible concern (such as air-conditioning or CCP) . In multivariate analyses adjusted for other workplace exposures, the authors reported that the use of CCP for more than 1 hr/day was associated with increased ORs for the following: eye, nose, and throat symptoms (OR=1.6, 95% CI=1.0–2.6) ; chest tightness or difficult breathing (OR=2.3, 95% CI=1.1–4.9) ”

“ A health officer may order a disease control measure to be carried out in respect of an article that is infected with a specified infectious disease, and may order the destruction of an infected article. ”

“ The disease control expert’s preliminary investigation suggested that some persons with cases of gastroenteritis had eaten at salad bars at restaurants in the community before becoming ill. One week later, on about September 24, the disease control expert learned that there were additional cases of illness in the community and that some affected persons had been hospitalized because of their illnesses. ”

“ Most often the inquiry is received indirectly from merchants, printers, brokers, etc. The yearly average of health-based inquiries is stated to include claims from companies alleging health symptoms and may or may not have included the regular inquiries. Furthermore, some inquiries do not state the number of workers affected and are thus treated as a single inquiry. Some of the inquiries result from odors associated with CCP. Also, some inquiries result from news articles and may have no temporal relationship with actual exposure. ”

“ A comparison group of 20 was composed of hospital office staff who did not handle CCP. The investigation was triggered by six cases in an insurance office; the main symptoms were irritation of the upper respiratory tract. The prevalence of symptoms was greatest in the hospital laboratory (92%) , where about 1,000 forms were handled per day by each of the five receptionists and seven computer operators. The insurance office workers worked with fewer forms (number not given) than the laboratory workers; they reported a 32% prevalence. ”

“ It is true, the United States government bestows on public health and preventive medicine no where near the attention it finds necessary for the prevention of disease in stock and for agricultural improvement, but none the less there are certain well-organized and efficiently operated agencies which have for their function the improvement of public hygiene and sanitation, the eradication of preventable disease, and the study of causation and methods of control of diseases. ”

“ The second exposure group of 15 workers processed the 42,000 returned forms over a 2-week period, checking and entering information into computers (about 280 per day per worker) . The comparison group was selected from 122 employees who worked in the same large office building and had returned completed questionnaires about symptoms and exposure to CCP. These questionnaires were administered weekly during the exposure periods. They included questions about CCP exposure, work with computers and photocopying, and subjective symptoms of skin and respiratory irritation. ”

“ A potential source of bias in the epidemiologic studies is overreporting of symptoms by workers who are already aware of a possible association between CCP exposure and irritative symptoms of the skin, eyes, and upper respiratory tract. This form of bias is often referred to as "recall bias" and is well recognized to be an important factor in epidemiologic studies in which symptoms or exposures are identified by
questionnaires administered to the study subjects. ”

“ Jaakkola and Jaakkola [1999] conducted a cross-sectional epidemiologic study of office workers in 41 randomly selected buildings in Helsinki in 1991. They used a questionnaire to investigate associations of health effects with work involving CCP, photocopying, and VDT use. ”

“ See Section 4.2.1 for a discussion of this study.
4.2.4 Laboratory Studies in Humans
This section reviews studies that used some form of experimental testing in humans (such as patch or prick tests) under controlled laboratory conditions to assess the potential health effects of exposure to CCP or its components. ”

“ A health officer may direct an owner or occupier of any premises, an operator of a point of entry, an operator of a conveyance (whether or not it is a cross-boundary conveyance) to carry out a disease control measure (defined to include cleansing, deratting, disinfection, disinsection and decontamination) in respect of the premises, point of entry or conveyance. ”

“ We will improve the disease prevention and control network, increase collaboration between disease control agencies and hospitals, make greater efforts to train public health personnel, and improve our capabilities for monitoring major epidemics and conducting early warning, epidemiological investigation and tracing, and emergency response. ”

“ However, these passive reporting systems are unlikely to capture all or even most cases of CCP-related health effects, and changes in publicity about CCP may have caused fluctuations in the reporting of cases. ”

“ A few brief observations on the control and prevention of infections diseases, such as small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, typhus fever, typhoid fever, cholera, &c.
The above-mentioned diseases are capable of being transmitted from those who are infected to those who are not. It is at once cheering and obligatory to know that the spread of these infectious diseases depends upon certain specific conditions, and that these conditions are primarily within the control of man. ”

“ For preventing, protecting against, delaying or otherwise controlling the incidence or transmission of the specified disease, the Secretary for Food and Health may, by notice published in the Gazette, specify a period for the purposes of section 4 (1) .
(2) Any period specified under subsection (1) must not exceed 14 days.
(3) Any notice published under subsection (1) is not subsidiary legislation. ”

“ The CDC's innovative programs also address our national challenges of chronic disease, workplace and environmental hazards, injuries, birth defects, disabilities, and new infectious threats. In addition, the agency gathers and analyzes scientific data to better monitor public health, provide a solid foundation for decision-making, and detect risk factors. ”

“ A medical institution, specialized institution or any of its staff member that discovers an infectious disease, an animal or a plant epidemic, or a disease cluster of unknown causes, shall promptly report it and take protective measures. ”

“ In an effort to reduce the risk of a similar attack in the United States, I am introducing legislation directing the Centers for Disease Control to develop a regulatory regime to control access to those infectious agents that could pose the greatest threat to public health if they fell into the wrong hands. ”

“ Article 71
⁠The state establishes monitoring, investigation and risk assessment system for diseases and health risk factors. People's governments at the county level and above and the departments concerned shall focus on main problems that affect health, organize and conduct research on health risk factors, and develop comprehensive prevention and control measures. ”

“ Each infections disease is caused by a district type of germ and virus which is too small to be seen with human eye, but can be seen with the help of a powerful microscope. An Infection disease becomes a community problem because its prevention and control require the team work of health workers and community. ”

“ Where the employer or the medical and health institution discovers any patient of occupational disease or any patient suspected of such disease, it shall report to the local public health administration department without delay. Where a patient is confirmed as one suffering from occupational disease, the employer shall also report to the local labor security administration department. ”

“ FROM the earliest times physicians have taken the lead in all that relates to the prevention of disease. In times of epidemic their advice is sought by afflicted communities and they have been instrumental in securing most of the legislation which has been enacted with a view to preventing or restricting the prevalence of infectious diseases. ”