"The AIHA board of directors received confidential financial and other documents and spent a lengthy amount of time on the telephone with ACGIH representatives prior to making this decision," said AIHA President Henry B. "Hank" Lick, Ph.D., CIH, CSP, ROH. "The board then fully and vigorously debated the information available before arriving at this decision."

AIHA's donation is intended to assist ACGIH with its legal defense of the TLV process as well as to assist with improving future development of TLVs. The AIHA board of directors believes that a one-time donation of this amount will permit ACGIH to meet its legal defense obligations during 2001. ACGIH requested assistance from AIHA in June of this year.

In 2000, three plaintiffs sued ACGIH over its development process for threshold limit values. One of the lawsuits was settled after the AIHA membership vote and before this vote of the AIHA board. A second TLV lawsuit was settled July 3, after the AIHA member referendum.