Mission Statement:

The Beryllium Health and Safety Committee (BHSC) is committed to preventing beryllium sensitization and chronic Beryllium Disease (CBD) and other adverse health effects that can be cased by workplace exposure to beryllium.

The Mission of the BHSC will be accomplished by::

• Promoting the safe use of beryllium
• Obtaining a better understanding of exposure risks
• Improving exposure monitoring
• Fostering improved controls
• Accumulating and Disseminating information concerning beryllium process best work practices, as well as, data from the health studies concerning the hazards associated with beryllium
• Training / mentoring of beryllium health professionals
• Identifying and promoting research that has the potential to enhance or improve our worker safety programs

Organization

To Apply for Membership

This mission is enabled by the organization of a directing body, the Executive Board, comprised of a Chair, potential for two Vice-Chairs, Secretary, the most recent past-Chair, six Subcommittee Chairs, and three members at large.

The BHSC is primarily comprised of occupational health, analytical, and operations personnel involved with beryllium processing issues for primarily the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and the Atomic Weapons complexes in the US and UK.

A member of the Executive Board is required to be an employee of the US DOE, US DOD, UK AWE, or the prime contractors of those organizations.  The full committee is comprised of individuals of U.S. citizenship, and employees of AWE and the UK Ministry of Defense, with foreign national participation allowed to participate as guests in open sessions.

Meetings

The Executive Board and full committee meets twice a year with intermediate meetings as required.  See Events for more details.