✍ Scribed by Donald E. Wasserman
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Since 1918, hand–arm vibration (HAV) exposure, principally from but not limited to vibrating power tools and processes, affects some 1.5 to 2 million regularly exposed U.S. workers and many more worldwide. These HAV exposures usually lead to an irreversible disease of the fingers/hands called hand–arm vibration syndrome whose prevalence is as high as 50% in exposed worker populations. HAVS results not only in hand–arm deterioration, but invariably job loss. To help combat the mounting HAV problem, domestic and international consensus HAV exposure standards were developed and promulgated in the early 1980s; but for the first time, the European Union in 2005 passed into law exposure standards for both HAV and whole‐body vibration. In response, in 2006 in the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) developed, replaced, and promulgated its 1986 HAV exposure standard S3.34 with a completely revised HAV standard—S2.70‐2006—thus ushering in new profound implications for power tool users and tool manufacturers and countless related manufacturing operations throughout the United States. The background, salient aspects, safety and health, and manufacturing implications of this new ANSI S2.70 HAV standard are discussed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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