What strategies are recommended for managing allergies to laboratory animals?
Animal care personnel, researchers, and technicians who work with laboratory animals are often at risk of developing allergies. Considered a common and significant occupational disease, laboratory animal allergy (LAA) has been observed to affect as many as one-third of personnel exposed to animals and may lead to serious health consequences if not managed appropriately. Carolyn Reeb-Whitaker, Senior Research Assistant with The Jackson Laboratory Allergy Research Group, and Fuzz Harrison, Industrial Hygienist at the Laboratory, recently published an overview of LAA that includes recommended strategies and methods to help manage the problem. (Reeb-Whitaker and Harrison, 1999). Simply put, an allergy can be described as an abnormal sensitivity to a substance (an allergen) that is normally tolerated by exposed individuals and generally considered harmless.
Animal care personnel, researchers, and technicians who work with laboratory animals are often at risk of developing allergies. Considered a common and significant occupational disease, laboratory animal allergy (LAA) has been observed to affect as many as one-third of personnel exposed to animals and may lead to serious health consequences if not managed appropriately. Carolyn Reeb-Whitaker, Senior Research Assistant with The Jackson Laboratory Allergy Research Group, and Fuzz Harrison, Industrial Hygienist at the Laboratory, recently published an overview of LAA that includes recommended strategies and methods to help manage the problem. (Reeb-Whitaker and Harrison, 1999). Simply put, an allergy can be described as an abnormal sensitivity to a substance (an allergen) that is normally tolerated by exposed individuals and generally considered harmless. Allergic reactions may include contact urticaria (skin redness or itchiness, welts, hives), allergic conjunctivitis and rhinitis (sneez
