1.1 What is vanadium? |
1.2 How might I be exposed to vanadium? |
1.3 How can vanadium enter and leave my
body? |
1.4 How can vanadium affect my health? |
1.5 Is there a medical test to determine
whether I have been exposed to vanadium? |
1.6 What recommendations has the federal
government made to protect human health? |
1.7 Where can I get more information? |
References |
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July 1992 |
Public Health Statement |
for |
Vanadium |
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This Public Health Statement is the
summary chapter from the Toxicological
Profile for vanadium. It is one in a series of Public
Health Statements about hazardous substances and their health
effects. A shorter version, the ToxFAQs™,
is also available. This information is important because this
substance may harm you. The effects of exposure to any hazardous
substance depend on the dose, the duration, how you are exposed,
personal traits and habits, and whether other chemicals are
present. For more information, call the ATSDR Information
Center at 1-888-422-8737.
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This Statement was prepared to give you
information about vanadium and to emphasize the human health
effects that may result from exposure to it. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has identified 1,177 sites on its
National Priorities List (NPL). Vanadium has been found at
23 of these sites. However, we do not know how many of the
1,177 NPL sites have been evaluated for vanadium. As EPA evaluates
more sites, the number of sites at which vanadium is found
may change. The information is important for you because vanadium
may cause harmful health effects and because these sites are
potential or actual sources of human exposure to vanadium.
When a chemical is released from a large
area, such as an industrial plant, or from a container, such
as a drum or bottle, it enters the environment as a chemical
emission. This emission, which is also called a release, does
not always lead to exposure. You can be exposed to a chemical
only when you come into contact with the chemical. You may
be exposed to it in the environment by breathing, eating,
or drinking substances containing the chemical or from skin
contact with it.
If you are exposed to a hazardous substance
such as vanadium, several factors will determine whether harmful
health effects will occur and what the type and severity of
those health effects will be. These factors include the dose
(how much), the duration (how long), the route or pathway
by which you are exposed (breathing, eating, drinking, or
skin contact), the other chemicals to which you are exposed,
and your individual characteristics such as age, sex, nutritional
status, family traits, life style, and state of health.
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1.1
What is vanadium? |
Vanadium is a natural element in the
earth. It is a white to gray metal, often found as crystals.
It has no particular odor. Vanadium occurs naturally in fuel
oils and coal. In the environment it is usually combined with
other elements such as oxygen, sodium, sulfur, or chloride.
The forms of vanadium most likely to be found at waste sites
are not well known. One man-made form, vanadium oxide (vanadium
bound to oxygen), is most often used by industry, mostly in
making steel. Vanadium oxide can be a yellow-orange powder,
dark-grey flakes, or yellow crystals. Much smaller amounts
are used in making rubber, plastics, ceramics, and certain
other chemicals. The most likely way for the chemical to get
into the air is when fuel oil is burned. When rocks and soil
containing vanadium are broken down into dusts by wind and
rain, vanadium can get into the air, groundwater, surface
water, or soil. It does not dissolve well in water, but it
can be carried by the water, much as particles of sand might
be carried.
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1.2
How might I be exposed to vanadium? |
Most people are exposed daily to very
low levels of vanadium in food, drinking water, and air. Most
of your intake is from food, and you eat about 10–20 micrograms
daily. The vanadium in these sources is at least partially
due to naturally occurring vanadium in rocks and soil. Vanadium
is naturally found in soil and rocks at about 150 parts of
vanadium per million parts of soil (150 ppm) in the earth's
crust. Vanadium combined with oxygen (vanadium oxide) gets
into the air when people burn fuel oil or coal. You can be
exposed to vanadium if you breathe in this air. Vanadium pentoxide
is in dusts in some factories that use it for making steel.
Ash from burning fuel oil or the leftover products from processing
vanadium-containing ore can be put into landfills following
proper treatment procedures. If these products are crushed,
it is possible that you might breathe in some dusts containing
vanadium. Also, the action of rain and wind may cause some
vanadium to move out of a landfill and onto nearby soil, food
crops, and water supplies. Some foods contain either naturally
occurring vanadium or vanadium from man-made sources; you
can be exposed to vanadium when you eat these foods. Vanadium
has been found in groundwater and at hazardous waste sites
throughout the United States. The exposure routes most likely
at hazardous waste sites are not well known.
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1.3
How can vanadium enter and leave my body? |
If vanadium is in the air, you can breathe
it into your lungs. Most of it leaves your body in the air
you breathe out, but some stays in your lungs. The part that
isn't breathed out can go through your lungs and get into
your bloodstream. You may eat or drink small amounts of vanadium
in food and water. Most of this does not enter your bloodstream,
but leaves your body in your feces. However, small amounts
that you swallow can enter your bloodstream. Most of the vanadium
that enters your bloodstream leaves your body quickly in the
urine. If you get vanadium on your skin, it is unlikely that
it will enter your body by passing through your skin.
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1.4
How can vanadium affect my health? |
If you breathe large amounts of vanadium
dusts for short or long periods, you will have lung irritation
that can make you cough, and you can also have a sore throat
and red irritated eyes. These effects stop soon after you
stop breathing it. People who breathed 0.1 milligram (mg)
of vanadium per cubic meter (m³) of air for 8 hours coughed
for about 1 week and had irritated eyes. No studies designed
to look for cancer in laboratory animals exposed to vanadium
were found. In studies that looked for health effects other
than cancer, rats and mice that drank water containing vanadium
or breathed in air containing vanadium throughout their lives
did not have more tumors than animals that were not exposed
to vanadium. Some minor birth defects (such as slightly smaller
offspring, offspring with broken blood vessels on parts of
their bodies or chemical changes in their lungs) occurred
when female rats drank vanadium in water when they were pregnant.
We do not know if vanadium would cause birth defects in people
because these effects may occur only in animals. Monkeys and
rats that breathed the dusts of vanadium compounds had changes
in the cells in the lungs. Rats that drank sodium metavanadate
in the water had minor kidney damage. Rabbits that breathed
large amounts of vanadium dust died, as did rats and mice
that drank large amounts.
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1.5
Is there a medical test to determine whether I have been exposed
to vanadium? |
Since vanadium is a natural element in
the earth, we all have a small amounts in our bodies. There
are some tests to show whether you have been exposed to larger
than normal amounts of vanadium. Vanadium can be measured
in the urine and blood. People exposed to larger than normal
amounts will show larger than normal amounts in their urine
and blood for a few days. Some workers who have been exposed
to large amounts of vanadium may have a green color on the
tongue. None of these tests can tell if you will become sick
from the vanadium but they are specific for vanadium exposure.
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1.6
What recommendations has the federal government made to protect
human health? |
Releases to the environment of more than
1,000 pounds of vanadium pentoxide must be reported to the
National Response Center. EPA has decided that if you eat
less than 9 micrograms (µg) of vanadium pentoxide per
kilogram (kg) of your body weight, your health is protected.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has
set a legal limit of 0.05 mg of vanadium pentoxide respirable
dust per m³ of air (0.05 mg/m³) for workers who
are exposed to vanadium in workroom air during an 8-hour shift
for a 40-hour workweek. Respirable dust is dust small enough
to enter the lungs when breathed in.
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1.7
Where can I get more information? |
If you have any more questions or concerns, please contact
your community or state health or environmental quality department or:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Division of Toxicology
1600 Clifton Road NE, Mailstop F-32
Atlanta, GA 30333
Information line and technical assistance:
Phone: 888-422-8737
FAX: (770)-488-4178
ATSDR can also tell you the location of occupational and environmental health
clinics. These clinics specialize in recognizing, evaluating, and treating illnesses
resulting from exposure to hazardous substances.
To order toxicological profiles, contact:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Phone: 800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000
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References |
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease
Registry (ATSDR). 1992. Toxicological
profile for vanadium. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, Public Health Service.
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