INFORMATION ON HEALTH ASPECTSOF PESTICIDES Table I. Cases of Poisoning Reported, April 1968 through June 1968 Lnder 5 Trs
Product
Camphor product, unspecified 15 134239 Campho-Phenique 15 134320 Camphor 15 134400 Camphor ice for lips 15 134880 Camphor liniment 15 135760 Camphor spirits 1.5 135520 Fleets Chapstick 15 316880 Total
Over 5 Trs.
Unknown Ages
Symptoms, Symptoms. Symptoms, .Age Cnk. Lnder 5 OXer5
...
4 6
2
3
...
...
...
25
11
6
2
1
2
2
1
...
...
1 -
16
Fatal. All Ages
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
...
2
1
...
Hospital. Over 5
...
...
1
41
...
Hospital, Age Link.
Hospital. Under 5
~ ~
~
9
placed the information for each trade name product in certain categories on tape so it will be readily available for review. A pilot table of this material is appended (Table I ) . We also have plans to incorporate significant statistical information into the treatment cards. Thus, the treating physician would learn that, in 200 previous ingestions, no symptoms had been noted. Although negative data of this nature might be deceiving, we believe they are of some value. This is particularly true of plant ingestions, because in many cases no information is available. Distribution of known information is but one problem in our search. The :availability of reliable, meaningful knowledge to disseminate represents a greater challenge.
5
... 1
...
...
...
..
... 2
...
_ .
1
... -
...
... -
...
LITERATURE CITED (1) Brodie, B. B., G. J. Cosmides, and D . P. Rall, “Toxicology and The Biomedical Sciences,” Science 148, 1547-54 (1965). ( 2 ) Adams, W. C., “Poison Control Center: Their Purpose and Operation,” Clin. Pharrnacol. Therap. 4, 293 (May-June 1963).
(3) Bulletin of the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers, July-August 1967. (4) Bulletin of the National Clearinghouse for Poison Control Centers, September-October 1962. (5) Maher, J. F., and G. E. Schreiner, Trans. A m . Soc. Artificial Internal Organs XIII, 369 (1967). (6) Dedrick, R. L., and K. B. Bischoff, Chem. Eng. Progr. Symp. Ser. 64 (84), 32 (1968). (7) Brodie et al., ioc. cit.
Information on Health Aspects of Pesticides* PHILIP C. MINTER+, WAYLAND J. HAYES, JR.it, and GUS J. CARAS Pesticides Program, Food and Drug Administration, Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service, Public Health Service, U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Atlanta, Ga. 30333 Received October 2, 1968
A program for establishing a computer-based system for national coordination and support of toxicological information, whether published or available in unpublished form, has been established a t the National library of Medicine. Planning for a riational system is in progress. The relationship of this system to other national resources for information processing and dissemination, and progress in planning care described.
Since DDT, first of the modern synthetic pesticides, was introduced commercially in 1945, the amount of pesticide chemicals used in the United States has increased tremendously. This is reflected currently by the Federal registration of more than 60,000 formulations, each containing one or more of some 800 different pesticidal 7
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JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL DOCUMENTATION, VOL. 9, X O . 2 , MAY 1969
compounds.’ The literature of pesticides increased proportionately, an increase which closely parallels the general growth pattern of all scientific literature. A t the 1963 meeting of the American Chemical Society, a panel of four distinguished scientists met to evaluate the pesticide information problems, and among the problems defined were the following:’ 1. The need for rapid and complete retrieval of pesticide information by government agencies. 2. The difficulty of maintaining awareness to the degree necessary for keeping the teaching of pesticides as current as possible.
73
P. C. MINTER,W. J. HAYES, JR.,AND G. J. CARAS 3. The difficulty of doing pesticide-oriented literature searches on classes of compounds indexed in the conventional manner.
The Pesticides Program of the Public Health Service has been studying the possible effects of pesticides on human health for a number of years and has been collecting literature on the toxicology of pesticides since 1950. This collection a t the present time consists of approximately 17,000 references and is continuously growing by regular scanning of the published literature. Although there are no figures available to show the year-to-year increase in the size of the collection, it is estimated that the collection grew about four times faster from 1961 to the present time than it did from 1950 to 1961. DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM
The existing system is a manual system consisting of recording pertinent references on standard 5 inch x 3 inch library cards, which are filed by author and subject. Hard copy is available for approximately 25% of the references. For the other 75% of the references, original articles are not in the collection either because they can be found in the library of the National Communicable Disease Center or because they were not readily available. The classification system is similar to the Dewey Decimal System except that two decimal sequences are used, one to express the main heading and the other a subheading. The references are classified by main heading, such as Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and within each main heading into several subheadings. A heading is represented by a sequence of numbers set off by distinct punctuation. Each heading is further subdivided in hierarchical fashion. These headings are printed on the upper left portion of the card one below the other as shown in Figure 1. The authors, title, and other bibliographic elements are printed below. Incidentally, the initial letter “S” in the main heading is identical in meaning to the figure “10;” both indicate substance. To avoid useless duplication, only certain headings (designated by letters) may be used as main headings. Thus, the sequence toxicity of e n d r i n is changed and only the sequence e n d r i n toxicity is permitted. Subject and author cards are produced from the same stencil but are distinguished by color. Subject cards are
1
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i I
I
endrin 1967
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Coble, Y . gd. Acute endrin poisoning. J.A.M.A. 202(6):489-493,
1967.
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Figure 1 . A typical index card. The portion below the broken line i s not a part of the card but has been added to explain the subject classification
74
I
filed numerically and author cards alphabetically. In addition to the collection in the Pesticides Program in Atlanta, duplicate copies of all reference cards are maintained a t the Western Pesticides Laboratory, Wenatchee, Wash., and the Pesticides Research Laboratory, Perrine, Fla. INVESTIGATIONS RELATED TO A PESTICIDES INFORMATION SYSTEM
Approximately two years ago, a contract was let by the Pesticides Program to perform a preliminary study of the informational requirements of the users of a health oriented Pesticides Information Center. The work under this contract included the compilation of a thesaurus covering the health and medical aspects of pesticides, a limited system of Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI), and publication of an abstract bulletin on an experimental basis. The potential users interviewed for the SDI system were all government personnel or persons working under contract to the government. The purpose of the interviews was to define the users’ needs for information, their habits in obtaining information, their vocabulary, their educational background, and their professional activities. The S D I system was of the usual type in which the index terms of the documents were matched against the users’ interest profiles. When matches occurred, the pertinent abstracts printed on 8 inch x 5 inch cards were sent to the users along with a questionnaire designed to evaluate the usefulness of the references to the users. One tentative conclusion that emerged from this evaluation was that SDI is not universally applicable or desirable in all research situations, particularly in relatively narrow fields in which specialized abstracting and indexing publications are available. I t was found that persons working on the periphery of the field favored an SDI system, whereas, scientists working on the toxicology of pesticides preferred to do their own ~ e a r c h i n g . ~ The contractor also prepared an abstract bulletin on the health aspects of pesticides on an experimental basis. Each issue of the abstract bulletin contained about 150 abstracts of papers published in about 500 different journals. Copies of each issue were mailed to about 200 selected persons who were actively engaged in the pesticides field. The users’ response indicated that this abstract bulletin was very useful to them as a current awareness tool in the field. ABSTRACT BULLETIN ON THE HEALTH ASPECTS OF PESTICIDES
Since the response to the experimental abstract bulletin indicated that there was a need for this type of abstract service, it was decided to resume the regular publication of an abstract bulletin. A contract was let in June 1968, to prepare this abstract bulletin on a regular basis, and the first issue is scheduled to appear the latter part of 1968. Under this contract, the contractor scans regularly approximately 500 journals in which the majority of articles on the health aspects of pesticides are usually published as well as other publications including reports and proceedings of meetings. The title of the abstract bulletin, which will be published monthly, will be Health Aspects of Pesticides, and will be available from the Government Printing Office a t an annual subscription price of $2.75. JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL DOCUMENTATION, VOL. 9, No. 2, MAY1969
AN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTHINFORMATION SERVICE Table I. Divisions of the Healfh Aspects of Pesticides Abstract Bulletin 4. Toxicology and Pharmacology 1. General 2. Monitoring 5 . Safety 3. Epidemiology and Treatment 6. Analysis
The abstracts in the bulletin will be of the informative type as far as possible, and abstracts of foreign publications will also be included. The abstracts will be grouped into six categories as shown in Table I. The abstracts in the bulletin will follow closely the format and rules established by Chemical Abstracts. There will be annual author and subject indexes for the convenience of the user. Other services to be performed under this contract include expansion of the thesaurus which was developed under the previous contract and a computerized system by which it will be possible to retrieve information automatically. I t is anticipated that the mechanized retrieval will not be very useful until several thousand abstracts accumulate making manual searching timeconsuming and ineffective. The primary purpose of the abstract bulletin for thle immediate future is, of course, current awareness rather than retrospective searching. FUTURE PLANS FOR PESTICIDES INFORMATION SYSTEM
The current collection of about 17,000 references on the toxicology of pesticides will be strengthened by the references that will result from the publication of the abstract bulletin. Reference cards for the papers in the abstract bulletin will be prepared and added to the central collection in Atlanta as well as to the satellite collections in the various laboratories of the Pesticides Program. I n the future, abstract cards will be produced from the magnetic tapes used in the production of the abstract bulletin, and it will be possible to expand their distribution to selected laboratories which are involved in the toxicology of pesticides. The cards will continue to be coded according to the system used in the Pesticides Program, and those laboratories receiving copies of the cards will also receive detailed instructions on the system of classification. I n addition, the new cards will carry keywords, so the labora-
tory receiving them will have a choice of the classification system they use. The advantage of the system used by the Pesticides Program is economy. Classification is assigned by an experienced person and printed directly on the card, which may be filed by a clerk. The use of keywords for indexing-for example, by use of a peeka-boo system-would offer the advantage of flexibility and somewhat greater depth of indexing; however, its maintenance in each laboratory using it would require considerable time of professionally trained personnel. As the information system is developed over the years, a sizable collection of references will be stored on the computer tapes. Eventually, in several years’ time, it will be possible to search these tapes for specific references to particular subjects. I t is hoped that this retrospective searching of the files can be made available as a service to those working on the toxicology of pesticides. This information system is designed to provide a broad informational background for all persons working in the field of the health aspects of pesticides. I n the abstract bulletin there is no attempt to go beyond the area of pesticides. Naturally, professional chemists working in this field will require references concerned with other aspects of chemistry, but it is hoped that the abstract bulletin will be a start on which they can build their own specific information systems. One of the roles of the Pesticides Program is to provide assistance to state and local health departments in building and strengthening their own competence in the problems related to pesticides and public health. I t is believed that the abstract bulletin, Health A s p e c t s of Pesticides, and the related services of the information system will be of great assistance to these departments of health. LITERATURE CITED (1) “Pesticides and Public Health,” pamphlet published by the Pesticides Program, National Communicable Disease Center, Atlanta, Ga., 1967. (2) Magee, R. J., J. CHEM.DOC.4, 164-8 (1964). (3) Wolfe, Molly A,, and Saul Herner, J. CHEM.DOC. 7 , 13841 (1967).
An Occupational Health Information Service* DOHRMAN H. BYERS U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Consumer Protection and Environmental Health Service, Environmental Control Administration, Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health, 1014 Broadway, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 Received October 2, 1968 Scientific Reference Service (SRS) of the Occupational Health Program provides a n information resource serving the Program research and field personnel, state and other federal agencies, industry, labor, physicians, attorneys, and the general public. Inquiries on any aspect of occupational health are accepted by letter or telephone. An information storage and retrieval system is operational but still developing, utilizing a special thesaurus and index searching by the optical coincidence technique. Approximately 1500 inquiries per year are being handled a t present.
The Scientific Reference Service of the Bureau of Occupational Safety and Health is the present stage of more than 50 years of technical information services in industrial ‘Presented before the Divislon of Chemical Llterature. Yymposlum on Toxicological Information Centers. 156th Meeting., ACS, Atlantic City. N. J., September 9, 1968. The mention of trade names doer. not constitute endorsement by the Department of Health. Education and \Velfare.
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL DOCUMENTATION, VOL. 9, NO. 2, MAY 1969
hygiene and occupational health. From the inception of an occupational health activity in the Public Health Service with the establishment of the Office of Industrial Hygiene and Sanitation in 1914, this program has been a resource for those seeking information on occupational health hazards and the toxicity of industrial materials. For most of this period, the technical information ser75
