This document is the result of a conference on "Biological Monitoring of
Metals" held in Rochester, June 2-6, 1986, organized jointly by the
Environmental Health Sciences Center of the School of Medicine and
Dentistry of the University of Rochester, NY, and the Scientific
Committee on the Toxicology of Metals within the International
Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) at the Karolinska Institute and
the National (Swedish) Institute of Environmental Medicine and the
University of Umea, Sweden. The aim of the Conference was to define and
evaluate the scientific basis for the biological monitoring of metals.
The conference was co-sponsored by the World Health Organization through
its International Program on Chemical Safety and received substantial
encouragement and support from the Swedish Work Environmental Fund and
the United States Environmental Protection Agency. This was the second
conference organized jointly by the Scientific Committee on the
Toxicology of Metals and The Toxicology Division of the University of
Rochester. The previous joint conference was held in 1982 on the
Reproductive and Developmental Toxicity of Metals. In addition,
conferences have been organized by each group (see Appendices A and B).
Several of these conferences are specially relevant to the topic of the
current conference. These include the joint conference mentioned above
and the conferences on dose-effect and dose-response relationship held
in Tokyo in 1974 and on accumulation of metals held in Buenos Aires in
1972.