A more responsible approach to carcinogens at work would be to set targets for “sunsetting” the most potent, and to introduce a toxics use reduction approach to ensure safer methods and processes are used where they are effective. Toxics Use Reduction is an approach which has not only been used effectively, but has also received strong support from industry.
Five Chemicals Alternatives Assessment Study, TURI, July 2006.
The International Labour Office (ILO) is to pursue a global ban on asbestos, the world’s biggest ever industrial killer. The landmark decision came with the adoption of a resolution on 14 June 2006 at the ILO conference in Geneva and followed a high level union campaign. Hazards asked Jukka Takala, director of ILO’s SafeWork programme, what ILO will now do to help make the world asbestos-free.
The UK must revise its massive official under-estimate of the work cancer toll, the TUC has said. The call comes after research this month confirmed TUC’s charge that the UK’s occupational cancer estimate is outdated and inadequate, missing most workplace cancers.
About 5,000 Australians a year develop cancer after being exposed to cancer-causing substances at work – more than twice as many cases as previously estimated. Research by the Queensland Cancer Fund and University of Sydney found 11 per cent of all cancers in men and 2 per cent of cancers in women were linked to occupation, prompting doctors to warn that occupational health and safety regulations may be failing to protect workers. In a criticism of the Doll/Peto 1981 estimate commonly cited by authorities, they note: “Because of outdated data, and gaps in knowledge of which chemicals cause cancer and the magnitude of the risk of cancer from each carcinogen, these are very likely to have been considerable underestimates.” They add: “We estimate that approximately 10.8 per cent of cancer cases (excluding non-malignant skin cancers) in males and 2.2 per cent of such cancer cases in females are caused by occupational exposures.” This is a key scientific paper that led to a reevaluation upward of occupational cancer burdens in many countries.
Lin Fritschi and Tim Driscoll. Cancer due to occupation in Australia, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, volume 30, number 3, pages 213-219, June 2006. Risks 261.
A highly influential occupational health journal has had to retract a paper on risks posed by cancer-causing chromium after it emerged the paper was not written by the scientists credited, but by consulting firm which has chromium industry clients. The July 2006 issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM), the official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, included the retraction of a 1997 article.
JOEM notice of retraction, July 2006. Risks 260.
A Canadian government commissioned review made wide-ranging recommendations, including concluding “it is necessary to take action in the following key areas: To raise the profile of the primary prevention of the environmental and occupational exposures as a priority issue within provincial cancer control agencies/programs; To disclose the presence, use and release of classified carcinogens, as a necessary prerequisite to primary prevention in workplaces, the environment and the home; To develop further legislation, regulation and policy, as required for primary prevention; To focus efforts nationally and provincially more specifically on primary prevention of exposures to occupational and environmental carcinogens; To establish the elimination, when possible, and minimization of exposure at all times for Group 1 and 2A carcinogens as an objective for primary stakeholders and governments; To exploit opportunities for inter-sectoral collaboration in order to maximize our effectiveness and focus activity on primary prevention strategies.”
Prevention of Occupational and Environmental Cancers in Canada: A Best Practices Review and Recommendations, National Committee on Environmental and Occupational Exposures Primary Prevention Action Group, Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, May 2006.
Asbestos diseases kill thousands in the UK every year. But these are not just statistics, they are all stories of pain, hardship and bereavement.
Hazards 94, May 2006 [pdf]. asbestos webpage
The report provides a listing of compensated occupational cancers caused by asbestos across Europe. At least eight such cancers are listed but only France has recognised them all. This fact reveals the difficulties with respect to legal, economic, and insurance issues dealt with in cancer recognition and that also apply to other occupational cancers.
Asbestos-related occupational diseases in Europe, enquiry report, European Forum of the Insurance against Accidents at Work and Occupational Diseases, Eurogip, April 2006.
On a rare occasion HSE did revisit its occupational cancer estimates, it revised them down. It now says the ratio of asbestos related lung cancers to mesotheliomas may be lower than 1 to 1 – a 2005 HSE paper puts the ratio of asbestos lung cancers to mesotheliomas at between 2/3 and 1 to 1 – much lower than many other estimates. In 2009, the HSE authors had to admit they had got their mesothelioma risk estimates for chrysotile asbestos wrong – out by a factor of 10 – casting doubt on the validity of their work in this area. This was exposed by Hazards magazine.
Darnton, AJ, McElvenny, DM, Hodgson, JT. Estimating the number of asbestos related lung cancer deaths in Great Britain from 1980-2000, Annals of Occupational Hygiene, volume 50, issue 1, pages 29-38, January 2006.
This paper by UK academics and asbestos patient advocates provides a rare example of costing an occupational cancer with regard to acute hospital care using registrar-general data and day book costs for pharmacological and surgical interventions. It does not consider primary or wider care costs or losses to the economy. The paper argues that consideration of occupational cancer costs is needed to assess public health impacts. It notes: “Figures for primary care costs, including caregiver costs, are incomplete or unknown. These disease costs are substantial and have some international generalisability. Treatment patterns and costs vary greatly. Many lung cancer cases due to asbestos exposure occur globally for each mesothelioma case. Hence figures provided in this article are certain to be gross underestimates of the total health service and personal economic costs of asbestos illness and treatment in Scotland.”
Andrew Watterson, Tommy Gorman, Cari Malcolm, Mavis Robinson, and Matthias Beck. The economic costs of health service treatments for asbestos-related mesothelioma deaths, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, volume 1076, pages 871-881, 2006.