A study of cause of death among 6,678 rubber production workers whose exposure to 25 solvents could be traced confirmed a cancer association. Exposure to carbon tetrachloride, xylene, carbon disulphide, ethyl acetate, acetone and hexane was related to increases in leukaemia and lymphosarcoma. Workers exposed to carbon tetrachloride had a 15 times greater risk and those exposed to carbon disulphide had a nine times greater risk of dying of leukaemia. In an earlier study the same group of workers were found to have increased deaths from stomach and prostate cancer, but these were not found to be related to solvent exposure.

TC Wilcosky and others. Cancer mortality and solvent exposures in the rubber industry, American Industrial Hygiene Association Journal, volume 45, number 12, page 809, 1984.

A  study have found a high risk of lung and kidney cancers in workers in the drycleaning and laundry industries. The Oklahoma study of 440 workers identified the solvent perchloroethylene as a key suspect. “Results did not show an overall increase in total cancer, but an elevated risk was found for homicide, lung cancer, and kidney cancer.” It comes after two previous US studies identified a similar link to kidney cancer.

RW Duh and NR Asal. Mortality among laundry and drycleaning workers in Oklahoma, American Journal of Public Health, volume 64, number 11, pages 1278-1280, November 1984.

A review of other 20 scientific studies has led the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has concluded there is ‘limited evidence’ that foundry work causes lung cancer. All the studies showed a raised risk of lung cancer compared to the general population – most were significantly higher, at between 1.5 and 2.5 times the expected level.

Aluminium production, coke production and iron and steel founding, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Monograph on the evaluation of Carcinogenic Risk, volume 34, June 1984.

A study of over 10,000 steel foundry workers in England has found a significant increase in lung cancer and chronic bronchitis. The study found: “Mortality from lung cancer was significantly raised among workers employed in the foundry and fettling shop areas (standardized mortality ratios 142 and 173, respectively). Most occupational categories in these two areas had more lung cancer deaths than expected, but the standardized mortality ratios were the largest for the furnace bricklayers, fettlers, and heat treatment furnacemen. There was some evidence of risk increasing with length of employment.” The lung cancer risk appeared to have increased over the preceding 30 years, while the chronic bronchitis risk had fallen.

AC Fletcher and A Ades. Lung cancer mortality in a cohort of English steel foundry workers, Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment and Health, volume 10, number 1, pages 7-16, 1984.

A study of the cause of death of 419 cement workers from north Kent, England, who died between 1948 and 1981 found an excess of stomach cancers. The analysis of death certificates found an almost two fold greater death rate from stomach cancer. In the group that packed and loaded cement there was a stomach cancer rate more than three times the expected level. The paper did not consider work practices, exposure levels or possible preventive measures.

ME Dowall. A mortality study of cement workers, British Journal of Industrial Medicine, volume 41, pages 179-182, 1984.

The Industrial Injuries Advisory Council recommended that asbestos-related lung cancer should for the first time be recognised as a prescribed industrial disease where there is not also asbestosis. The recommendation was accepted by government.

Asbestos related diseases without asbestosis, Cmnd 8750, IARC, November 1982.

A 1982 study conducted by the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Edinburgh found a clear link between some jobs in the British steel and coke industries and lung cancer. The authors noted that the elevated rates of lung cancer in blast furnace men “should be investigated”. [A 1990 study by IOM, part financed by British Steel, found for these workers there was “about a twofold risk of lung cancer relative to steel workers in other occupations.” The study design meant many cancers and other chronic diseases would not have yet emerged at the conclusion of the study.] For coke oven workers, they concluded “we consider than occupationally related excess of lung cancer has been shown clearly. We consider that the excess number of lung cancer deaths among younger workers may reflect the real risks more accurately than the results for all men.”  In 1986, the UK Industrial Injuries Advisory Council considered whether lung cancer in coke oven workers should be added to the list of prescribed industrial diseases for which no-fault state compensation was payable. IIAC said no. After another quarter of a century of uncompensated deaths, only in 2011 did IIAC conclude “that lung cancer associated with (i) at least five years in total of work at the top of a coke oven or (ii) at least 15 years in total of coke oven work, should be added to the list of prescribed diseases. For workers who move between these coke oven jobs, and whose employment in top oven work amounts to less than five years in total, we recommend that each year of top oven work be counted as contributing three years towards the greater target of 15 years, as set out in further detail in our report.” That same year IIAC declined to add lung cancer in foundry workers to the prescribed disease list.

Jacobsen and others. Mortality of workers in the British steel and coke industries, Institute of Occupational Medicine, 1982.
Also see: Hurley and others. Mortality 1967-1977 of industrial workers and ex-workers from the British steel industry: further analyses, IOM, 1990.
Occupational Lung Cancer, IIAC, December 1986.
Lung cancer in coke oven workers, Cm 8163, IIAC, 13 September 2011.
Lung Cancer and Foundry Workers, Position Paper 29, IIAC, 29 March 2011.

The 1981 Doll/Peto paper remained the UK Health and Safety Executive’s preferred source for estimates of occupational cancer causes and incidence until 2008, long after the findings has been disputed and described as “discredited”.  Errors in methodology led to a substantial under-estimate of the true incidence. The pro-industry leanings of the lead author was also criticised. Hazards magazine noted in 2007 that basing official policies on Doll/Peto estimates has resulted in a chronic failure to secure either the resources or the priority required for meaningful preventive action.

Doll R and Peto R. The causes of cancer: Quantitative estimates of avoidable risks of cancer in the United States today, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 66, number 6, pages 1191-1308, 1981.

The major challengers of the estimates made by Doll and Peto from the late 1970s and 1980s. Epstein and Schwartz give greater weight to toxicological and clinical research and challenge the relatively low estimates given by Doll and Peto to work and wider environmental factors. Self-interest of the chemical industry apart, the lifestyle theory of cancer causation is held to reflect misinformation and ‘inactive conservatism’.

Epstein S and JSchwarz. Fallacies of lifestyle cancer theories. Nature, volume 289, pages 127–130, 1991.

This groundbreaking guide from the US autoworkers’ union UAW, issued in 1980 [editor’s note: reprinted in 1992], gave workers the information to interpret epidemiological studies for themselves, identify their strengths and weaknesses and to identify work-related cancer risks for themselves.

The initiative came as the UAW leadership declared “war on workplace cancer” in response to an alarming series of cancer mortality studies conducted among autoworkers by government, company, and union epidemiologists.

These studies revealed an “increased proportion of cancer deaths” among “workers in machining operations, foundry workers, and workers in vehicle assembly plants”; the epidemiologists believed those deaths were related to occupational carcinogen exposure.

The Case of the Workplace Killers: A Manual for Cancer Detectives on the Job, UAW, November 1980.

[For a review of UAW’s ‘war on workplace cancer’, see: Josiah Rector. Environmental Justice at Work: The UAW, the War on Cancer, and the Right to Equal Protection from Toxic Hazards in Postwar America, Journal of American History, volume 101, number 2, pages 480-502, September 2014. Full text of the article is posted online here.]