Welding

[careful_eugene]

At any rate I do all my welding outside for good reason.

It's actually quite unusual for the HSE to issue Safety Alerts of this nature.
The change is based on a solid scientific evidence, gathered over many years.

They're not saying 'don't do welding'.
They're saying that people should take sensible precautions when welding.
The majority of welding is done inside, but if you're doing it outside, make sure the wind is in the right direction....

The main reason for all the HSE attention and everyone scrambling to install fume extraction equipment is the presence of manganese in welding fume, which has been found to be carcinogenic. We have regular air quality tests here and have recently been asked to provide data about the levels of nickel in the tests as there may soon be a change to the limits to this.

[fuzzy]

Reminds me of the yorkshire humour when I asked why they had a camera on the roof watching the exhaust vents of the melting shop. The furnace control room said it was put there 'to watch when we were boiling the lead off the scrap'. I think it was a joke?