Maggie Davidson
Maggie is a senior lecturer and researcher based at Western Sydney University, and member of the AIHA renewable agriculture SIG and FIHO hemp research and standards committee. She is a registered occupational hygienist with the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygiene (AIOH) and member of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand (TSANZ) Occupational and Environmental Lung Disease Education, Policy and Advocacy SIG.
I've been working with hemp growers and mills alongside the AIHA and FIHO in the last 5 years to learning from their experiences and helping raise awareness of health and safety hazards and how they may be managed. My current focus is on decorticator dust, characterising its make-up and running experiments to see what happens when human lung cells are exposed to it. By doing this we can compare hemp dusts (pollen, fibre, flower, resins) with well known workplace dusts such as grain, cotton, flour to gauge its potential for toxic, irritant and allergic effects in the lung, as well as other parts of the body. Due to cannabis prohibition straddling the last 100 years there is a lot we do not know about the toxicology of airborne hemp dust, as well as other industry hazards that require our attention. Together we can work to identify, evaluate and manage hazards to create safe and healthy workplaces for everyone.
Abstracts this author is presenting: