Background
When chemicals are taken up in the human body, it is possible for certain substances to perform a measurement in biological matrices (urine, blood, hair, ...). This concentration canteach us something about the previous exposure during the last few hours, days, weeks, ... depending on the compound. In Belgium, a binding biological limit value is only available for lead (70 µg Pb/100 ml blood), but there are also a lot of other biological limit values that can tell us (in)directly something about the exposure in the recent or less recent past.

Legislation

• KB Chemical agents (11/03/2002) (Dutch)
• KB Carcinogenic and mutagenic agents (02/12/1993) (Dutch)

Standards

• NBN EN 689:1995 Workplace atmospheres - Guidance for the assessment of exposure by inhalation to chemical agents for comparison with limit values and measurement strategy

Documentation

• FIOH Guideline for Specimen Collection
• HSA Biological Monitoring Guidelines
• HSE Biological Monitoring in the Workplace
• IRSST Biological Monitoring Guide (French)

Tools

• INRS Biotox (French) Database with methods for biomonitoring
• IRSST Biological monitoring concentration convertor

Websites

• http://www.hse.gov.uk/ has a subsection on biological monitoring
• http://www.toxi.ucl.ac.be/biological_monitoring/list.html (French) website biomonitoring lab UCL (exposure per sector, biological parameters, limit values and sampling conditions)