Metal Fume Fever

Excerpt

Metal fume fever is a self-limited febrile illness that occurs in those individuals that fuse metals, such as welders. Welders also are involved in filling indentations and seams in the metal. Metal fume fever presents as a flu-like syndrome occurring shortly after these activities and others where metals are bound together. Improvement occurs over the course of the work week, but re-ex-exposure after return to work results in a return of symptoms, such as fever, malaise, and wheezing. For this reason, it is sometimes called "Monday morning fever." The first reported cases were in the 1830s. The association between metal oxides with symptoms of fever, dyspnea, and muscle aches was proven when Lehmann exposed himself and four volunteers to gaseous products of the welding process, including zinc oxide.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the syndrome of metal fume fever is seen most often in welders, cutters, brazers, and solderers. Welders use many different techniques. The most common is using electric currents to create heat, slightly melt metals, and bond them together. Arc welding produces currents to create intense heat, which melts metals and facilitates bonding. The process chosen depends on the metals to be bonded. Zinc is the most common metal involved in these bonding procedures.

"Cutters" use an ionized gas called plasma, also of intense heat, to trim metal objects to specific dimensions. Plasma cutters may be involved in dismantling large objects such as ships, railroad cars, and buildings. Solderers and brazers use a third metal to join two or more other metal objects. Solderers typically work with small metal pieces that must be positioned precisely, for example, transistors or computer chips. Brazers connect dissimilar metals through the agency of filler material, thereby producing strong joints between multiple metals. Brazers may also apply coatings to protect against corrosion and wear.

Exposure to metal fumes has caused recognized illness for about 200 years and has been known under several names such as Monday fever, brass founders' ague, welders ague, smelter chills, and zinc shakes. Exposure is from inhaling fumes during the welding process or cutting galvanized metal. Galvanization is a process by which a zinc coating is applied to steel. This process protects the steel from oxidation, corrosion, and weakening.