OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES:
Occupational disease, a major category of environmental disease, refers to illness resulting from job-related exposures. Environmental diseases are caused by chemical agents, radiation, and physical hazards. Many substances found in the workplace can cause breathing problems. Some of which are dusts, fumes, smoke, gases, vapours and mists. Particularly frequent in the workplace are skin lesions from different causes and pulmonary diseases related to the inhalation of various dusts, such as coal dust (black lung), cotton dust (brown lung), asbestos fibres (asbestosis), and silica dust (silicosis). Environmental agents can also cause biological effects without overt clinical illness (for example, chromosome damage from irradiation). The potential interaction of multiple hazardous chemicals at toxic waste dumps, pose a current public-health problem of unknown dimensions.
Environmental diseases can affect any organ of the body. How the diseases are expressed depends on how the particular environmental agent enters the body, how it is metabolized, and by what route it is excreted. The skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and nervous system are commonly affected by different agents in different settings.
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