Workers set to lose their jobs at a General Electric plant in the US fear serious diseases linked to their exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) could hit them later in life.

The union representing the workers at the GE Fort Edward plant is citing concerns over exposure to toxic PCBs – used in manufacture of capacitors at the plant – in pressing the company to pay for health testing after workers lose their jobs.

But the Albany Times Union reports the company, which is closing the plant, is refusing the request. A high-ranking GE executive also told the union there is “no credible evidence” that PCBs cause cancer or other serious illness, a stance that puts the company at odds with federal and international health agencies that for years have labelled the chemical as a likely human carcinogen.

Gene Elk, an official with the electrical union UE, said that workers are concerned potential exposure to PCBs could put them at risk of illness later in life. The union wants access to company-collected health records of workers at both Fort Edward and a second Hudson Falls plant.

National health and safety regulator OSHA this month cited GE for safety violations at the Fort Edward plant and issued $53,000 in fines. One fine was because federal inspectors found “employees’ working surfaces were not kept clean from PCB contamination” during a 5 August 2015 inspection, according to the citation. GE has until 8 February to either accept or contest the fines.

A greater emphasis on prevention of cancers would reap considerable benefits, the director of the UN’s cancer agency has said.

Christopher Wild, who heads the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said figures vary, “but one can safely estimate that 40 to 50 per cent of cancers could be prevented if the accumulated knowledge about causes could be translated into effective primary prevention.”

Writing a wide-ranging article in the journal Health Management, he said it was a “pivotal time for cancer prevention”, noting: “Prevention and early detection demonstrably work… Estimates of the costs of implementing cancer prevention strategies are difficult to make on a global scale, but are certainly a fraction of the costs of dealing with the consequences of the occurrence of these same cancers.”

Wild added: “Despite proof and promise, prevention remains too often neglected. Prevention typically attracts less than 5 per cent of cancer research funding with vastly greater proportions invested in basic science and clinical translational research.”

Highlighting tobacco usage as the “pre-eminent culprit”, he noted: “Alcohol, excess sunlight, unhealthy diets, environmental contaminants and occupational exposures all contribute.”

The IARC head is critical of the tendency to focus on “individual choices, whereas legislation and policy may be keys to success, offering a sustainable approach and one which contributes to reduced inequalities in society.”

Wild reiterates a theme from a July 2015 article where he wrote the “the necessity of prevention is blindingly obvious.” In Adjacent Government, he also noted: “Improved protection against workplace carcinogens form part of the successes.”

There are concerns IARC may not have fully absorbed its own prevention message. The majority of cancer causes identified in IARC monographs are industrial chemicals or other work-related occupational and environmental exposures.

However, IARC’s own prevention guides are skewed towards lifestyle interventions, with none advocating a reduction in workplace or environmental exposures to carcinogens. The UN agency has also been accused  of damaging its reputation through collaboration with the asbestos industry.

A major study published in Nature in December 2015 concluded workplace, environmental and other ‘extrinsic’ exposures are the cause of up to 90 per cent of cancers.

• Christopher Wild. Precision in the fight against the global cancer problem, Health Management, volume 15, issue 4, 2015.

Executives at the world’s biggest asbestos factory spied on journalists and  safety and environmental campaigners who exposed the killer dust’s dangers.

Secret industry documents seen by The Independent newspaper reveal that the executives at Rochdale-based asbestos giant Turner and Newall (T&N) monitored people they considered to be “subversive” and kept a dossier on their activities at the height of the debate about the mineral’s safety in the 1980s.

Those identified in the report include the British Society for Social Responsibility in Science (BSSRS) – the organisation that set up what became Hazards magazine – Alan Dalton, the now deceased former union national safety officer and author of ‘Asbestos Killer Dust’, journalists working on an award-winning asbestos documentary and Friends of the Earth.

Also targeted was Nancy Tait, the founder of the world’s first asbestos victims’ advocacy group, an asbestos widow who died in 2009. The firm then used a media and political campaign in an attempt to discredit its critics.

The T&N documentation was unearthed from the company’s archives by Manchester Metropolitan University researcher Jason Addy as part of 12 years of research into the firm’s toxic legacy. He said: “My research findings give me great cause for concern.” The trained lawyer called for “an investigation into Turner and Newall’s role in undermining the democratic process.”

Despite being a major player in global chemicals production, the UK is showing little interest in efforts to control the most dangerous substances including carcinogens, a new report suggests.

The report from the European Environment Bureau (EEB), argues that unless the EU chemicals regulation REACH “is better enforced, it will never achieve its aim of removing harmful chemicals from the market”. A Roadmap to Revitalise REACH notes “most Member States, including several with a strong chemicals industry, such as Italy or Ireland, are not contributing at all to the process, while others, like the UK and Spain, are only contributing marginally.”

The report reveals the UK government has only proposed two Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC), chemicals including carcinogens and reproductive toxins targeted for phase-out. It notes even Norway, not an EU Member State, has proposed more (6), while France (17) and Germany (44) top the table.

Dr Michael Warhurst, executive director of CHEM Trust, a UK-based charity that promotes safer alternatives to hazardous chemicals, said: “We are very concerned about the performance of the UK government, who seem to have a deliberate strategy of not identifying the chemicals of very high concern. Do we really think it is OK to leave this job to other countries, when UK citizens and wildlife are just as exposed to these hazardous substances?”

CHEM Trust is critical of the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) approach to the identification and control of the “worst chemicals”. It points to an online HSE strategy document that states there must be “an overriding UK government policy need for the UK to take the initiative on a substance”.

CHEM Trust says “this shows a worrying lack of commitment to human health and the environment.”

• A Roadmap to Revitalise REACH, EEB, December 2015.
• Health and Safety Executive online document on ‘Selecting substances to propose for authorisation, restriction, evaluation or harmonised classification and labelling’.
• ECHA SVHC webpages.

Electronics companies are starting to respond to pressure to reduce their use of chemicals that are known to be hazardous to human health, the environment or both.

The industry’s slow steps away from damaging chemicals follows increasing recognition that electronics manufacture is causing cancer and other serious health effects in exposed production workers all the way along the supply chain. And the harmful impact goes further, with much of the discarded electronic waste illegally exported for typically hazardous recycling or disposal.

In an indepth feature published on the environmental news website Ensia, journalist Rachel Cernansky notes that to eliminate certain chemicals, electronics companies need to know if and where they’re using them in the first place. But modern supply chains have become so long and complex that many electronics companies don’t actually know which substances are in all the parts they use in their products.

High profile campaigns have put the electronics industry’s health and safety abuses, cancer clusters and pollution in the public eye. They have also been a driver of improvements in both knowledge about what is used in manufacturing products and recognition of the case for using safer alternatives.

“If you solve a problem at the upstream stage – if it’s designed in a proper way, if the hazardous components are replaced by less or non-hazardous ones – the problem downstream will be less,” said Tadesse Amera, a steering committee member of IPEN, a global network focused on safer use of chemicals. She told Cernansky: “We are not talking about waste. We are talking about the whole process.”

Joel Tickner, director of the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council, a project based at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, said: “There’s been a lot of writing about toxicity in the electronics supply chain. I think what’s new is global collaboration, stronger focus on purchasing, collaboration among electronics companies really starting to dig into their supply chains.”

Cernansky reports that Ted Smith, coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology, has been talking with major companies such as Apple and Seagate to increase their access to such information. Seagate, he says, has come a long way. “They’ve been able to get all their suppliers to disclose all of their chemicals, and they’ve got thousands of suppliers around the world. It’s not an insignificant task,” Smith told her.

Tools like Substitution Support Portal and GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals increasingly provide practical advice on the move from hazardous to less hazardous substances and processes.

Workplace, environmental and other ‘extrinsic’ exposures are the cause of up to 90 per cent of cancers, researchers have concluded.

The study by a team at Stony Brook University in the US was prompted by a heavily criticised paper in the journal Science which in January 2015 claimed ‘bad luck’ was behind most cancers.

The new research  “found quantitative evidence proving that extrinsic risk factors, such as environmental exposures and behaviours weigh heavily on the development of a vast majority (approximately 70 to 90 per cent) of cancers.”

Song Wu, lead author of the paper and assistant professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Stony Brook University, said; “Many scientists argued against the ‘bad luck’ or ‘random mutation’ theory of cancer but provided no alternative analysis to quantify the contribution of external risk factors.” He added: “Our paper provides an alternative analysis by applying four distinct analytic approaches.”

The finding, published online in the journal Nature on 16 December 2015, concluded cancers are overwhelmingly the result of external risk factors and not bad luck.

The authors used four separate research techniques, employing both data- and model-driven quantitative analyses to reach their conclusion. These analyses discovered “collectively and individually that most cancers are attributed largely to external risk factors, with only 10-to-30 per cent attributed to random mutations, or intrinsic factors.”

Co-author Professor Yusuf Hannun, director of Stony Brook University Cancer Center, concluded that their overall approach “provides a new framework to quantify the lifetime cancer risks from both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, which will have important consequences for strategising cancer prevention, research and public health.”

• Song Wo, Scott Powers, Wei Zhu and Yusuf A Hannun. Substantial contribution of extrinsic risk factors to cancer development, Nature, published online 16 December 2015.

Latest asbestos mortality figures, published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in October 2015, have confirmed that the asbestos cancer mesothelioma claims over 2,500 lives in Great Britain each year and the toll is rising.

The figures followed an Office for National Statistics (ONS) breakdown of deaths by location in England and Wales, published in August 2015, that analysed the rate of deaths from mesothelioma in local authority areas between 2010 and 2014. Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria had the highest rate at 14.3 fatalities per 100,000 people. South Tyneside (11.1), North Tyneside (10.9), Fareham (10.0) and Hartlepool (8.7) completed the top five, with Newcastle upon Tyne, Portsmouth and Southampton closely behind.

A total of 11,011 deaths where mesothelioma was found to be an underlying cause were recorded in England and Wales across the four-year period analysed, with the number of fatalities increasing every year.

“This research truly highlights the devastating impact that asbestos has had on so many lives, with more than 11,000 people passing away as a result of mesothelioma in the past four years alone,” said asbestos compensation specialist Adrian Budgen, a partner at the law firm Irwin Mitchell. He added the findings highlighted the “devastating impact” of asbestos exposures. “The suggestion that the number of people killed by this terrible cancer every year is increasing is a massive concern,” he said. “Sadly many estimates do indicate that this figure has not yet peaked and will only increase in coming years.

“We are now seeing a growing number of people come forward seeking help regarding exposure they believe occurred in public buildings, such as hospitals and schools, where the material may have been present.”

Across Great Britain, two Scottish authorities feature in the top 20 list for mesothelioma deaths. West Dunbarton UA comes second and Inverclyde 12th.

The asbestos disease crisis is a Europe-wide phenomenon. A report published in September 2015 concluded over 47,000 people in the European Union are dying of asbestos related conditions each year with the UK topping the fatalities list. ‘Eliminating occupational cancer in Europe’, published by the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), puts deaths caused by exposure to asbestos at three times previous estimates.

An international review published in 2014 concluded the “mesothelioma epidemic does not show signs of attenuation. The lack of data for a large majority of the world does not allow that the consciousness of the risks related to asbestos exposure is reached.”

Korean electronics firm SK Hynix has agreed to provide compensation to current and former semiconductor factory workers, including those of its subcontractors, who may be suffering from a range of occupational diseases including cancer.

The company said it would accept “immediately” the recommendation of an industrial and public health review committee that conducted a year-long inspection of Hynix semiconductor workplaces.

The committee, headed by Ajou University preventive medicine professor Jang Jae-yeon, announced its findings at a press conference in Seoul on 25 November 2015. Its report recommended that workers suffering a range of conditions should be compensated by the firm, even though it accepted establishing the causal relationship between the semiconductor working environment and suspected occupational diseases was “difficult to prove.”

The committee was formed in the wake of a critical 2014 report by the Hankyoreh newspaper. In response, a team of seven outside independent experts was formed in October 2014 to conduct on-site inspections. National Health Insurance Service data showed male and female workers had respectively thyroid cancer rates 2.6 and 1.3 times the average for all workers, while women showed higher-than-average rates of miscarriage (1.3 times) and bladder cancer (1.1 times).

Professor Jang said: “We would need to track and manage incidence rates for a period of ten to twenty years, and the problem there is that people couldn’t get compensation if we judged it strictly by causation.” He added: “That’s why we are proposing a comprehensive support and compensation system that provides the basic level needed for patients whose health has been impaired to treat their conditions and maintain everyday life.”

The committee’s recommendations, agreed by the company, indicated all cases of cancer, miscarriage, and rare diseases suspected of even a slight association with work in the semiconductor industry should be included. “The committee’s determination was that if you contracted cancer while working somewhere, society should not just ignore that,” Jang said.

SK Hynix responded by saying it would “implement support and compensation for all patients with suspected [occupational disease] conditions in according with our company’s social role.”

A major fracking firm has gone on the offensive, attacking claims by a UK campaign group that there are potentially serious occupational and environmental risks associated with the controversial process.

Cuadrilla hit out after a leaflet from the campaign group Friends of the Earth (FoE) highlighted warnings, many made by official US government agencies, about the dangers posed by the toxic chemicals and crystalline silica used in large volumes in fracking operations.

Francis Egan, Cuadrilla’s chief executive, said the FoE claims about chemical risks were “irresponsible and shameful”. The firm said it was referring the “wilfully misleading” leaflet to the Charity Commission, Advertising Standards Authority and the Fundraising Standards Board.

The company picked out FoE references to crystalline silica and polyacrylamide for particular attention. FoE had identified  official cancer and lung disease warnings linked to respirable crystalline silica exposure in fracking workers in the US. It noted polyacrylamide, also used in fracking operations, has been identified by authorities as a potential source of groundwater contamination with acrylamide, a probable carcinogen.

A Cuadrilla spokesperson said: “As Friends of the Earth is well aware, the UK Environment Agency does not permit the use of ‘a toxic cocktail of chemicals’ in fracking fluid for use in the UK and, in fact, only permits fracking fluid that it has assessed and tested as non-hazardous to groundwater.”

FoE noted there had been a spate of recent stories “that seem designed to undermine the credibility of those campaigning to stop fracking. It’s no surprise to see this happening, as the anti-fracking movement really has been getting in the way of government and industry plans.” FoE added the “risk to the health and safety of workers should be properly investigated, not made a mockery of.”

The stories critical of FoE’s approach, included articles in The Times and on the BBC website citing Cuadrilla, prompted a group of top academics to back publicly FoE’s stance on the dangers posed by fracking.

A letter signed by occupational and environmental health specialists from the UK, US, Italy and Australia, notes: “It would be folly not to learn from the US experience of fracking. The refrain in the UK that, if properly regulated, fracking can be performed with no significant risk to health assumes that the risks have been properly assessed and the regulatory system is robust. Neither is true.”

It warns: “Fracking without question involves exposure to substances linked to cancer, asthma and other health impacts. It is not scaremongering to say so.”

Companies are continuing to expose workers to excessive levels of silica dust, which can cause deadly cancers and lung diseases, the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has admitted.

HSE, the official UK safety regulator, urged the stone industry to do more to protect workers’ health after an inspection initiative in the south of England found a failure to control the potentially lethal dust was commonplace. HSE inspectors visited 60 stone businesses, including work surface manufacturers, stonemasons and monumental masons, in the period from June to September 2015.

The initiative, supported by trade association, Stone Federation Great Britain, visited both federation members and non-members. HSE found serious breaches at over half (35) of the premises that were visited, with inadequate control of respirable crystalline silica (RCS) one of the “common areas of concern… found throughout the initiative”. It issued four prohibition notices, 54 improvement notices and provided verbal advice to others. HSE told Hazards magazine that most of its enforcement action – three of the four prohibition notices and 36 of the 54 improvement notices – related to a failure to control silica exposures.

HSE said “a number of businesses” were unaware that in 2006 the workplace exposure limit for respirable crystalline silica was revised from 0.3 mg/m³ to 0.1mg/m³, requiring more stringent controls. In a clarification to Hazards magazine, the watchdog said “at least 7” of the 60 businesses were unaware of the tighter standard, “however feedback was not sought from all inspectors on this point.”

The new information from HSE adds to concerns about the effectiveness of official efforts to address the workplace silica hazard.

Last year, HSE was accused of leaving workers at double jeopardy from the cancer-causing, lung scarring dust. A report in the workers’ safety magazine Hazards criticised HSE for resisting a union-backed call for it to halve the current 0.1mg/m³ exposure limit for the common workplace dust. And it said the government-imposed, hands-off, HSE enforcement policy combined with swingeing resource cuts mean even the current “deadly” standard is not being enforced effectively.

The report concluded that HSE’s strategy to address the long-established risks has not worked. A 2009 baseline study by HSE found that all the major industries with a potential for high silica exposures, including the stone industry, were failing to control the risks effectively.

HSE campaigns over many years have failed to increase awareness of silica risks or led to improvements in workplace conditions.