‘Cancer: 101 solutions to a preventable epidemic,’ lays out a preventive response to cancer risks in a clear and accessible manner. The Canadian publication shows how you can stop cancer by eliminating the carcinogens in your home, your school, your community, and your workplace and how you can work with others to make the world safe for yourself and your children.

Cancer: 101 solutions to a preventable epidemic, Liz Armstrong, Guy Dauncey, and Anne Wordsworth. ISBN 978 0 86571 542 4. £12. New Society Publishers, Canada.

Hairdressers probably face an increased risk of cancer because of the dyes and other chemicals they work with, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). A Lancet Oncology report of a IARC working group’s findings concludes. “Because of the few supporting findings by duration or period of exposure, the working group considered these data as limited evidence of carcinogenicity and re-affirmed occupational exposures of hairdressers and barbers as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans.’”

Robert Baan, Kurt Straif, Yann Grosse, Béatrice Secretan, Fatiha El Ghissassi, Véronique Bouvard, Lamia Benbrahim-Tallaa, Vincent Cogliano, on behalf of the WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer Monograph Working Group. Carcinogenicity of some aromatic amines, organic dyes, and related exposures, The Lancet Oncology, volume 9, number 4, pages 322-323, April 2008. Risks 352,.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer’s Kurt Straif reviews various studies and notes the problems of obtaining accurate exposure data. The most stringent application of data requirements led the World Health Organisation to provide estimates for just three occupational cancers – lung cancer, mesothelioma and leukaemia. Selected carcinogens accounted for 9 per cent of global lung cancer deaths.

Kurt Straif. The burden of occupational cancer, Occupational and Environmental Medicine volume 65, pages 787-788, 2008.

A well-resourced attempt by industry lobby groups has failed in a legal bid to keep under wraps a listing of non-statutory, non-binding chemical exposure limits. In a summary judgment, a federal judge in the United States District Court in Macon, Georgia dismissed the last of four counts in a lawsuit against the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH).

ACGIH news release, 12 May 2008. The Pump Handle. DefendingScience.org.

Common weed killers have been linked to cancers in exposed workers. Women whose jobs regularly expose them to weed killers may have a higher-than-normal risk of a particular form of brain cancer, results of a US study suggest. Researchers writing in the American Journal of Epidemiology reported that among more than 1,400 US adults with and without brain cancer, women who had ever been exposed to herbicides at work had a two-fold higher risk of meningioma than women with no such exposure. Meningiomas are slow-growing tumours in the tissue covering the brain and spinal cord. In a separate study, US researchers found that a chemical that comes from the pesticide DDT may raise a man’s risk of developing testicular cancer. They found a clear link between testicular cancer and DDE, a breakdown product of DDT. Men with the highest levels of DDE were 70 per cent more likely to have developed testicular cancer than those with the lowest levels, according to the study published in May 2008 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Claudine M Samanic and others. Occupational exposure to pesticides and risk of adult brain tumors, American Journal of Epidemiology, volume 167, pages 976-985, 2008 [abstract]
Katherine A McGlynn and others. Persistent organochlorine pesticides and risk of testicular germ cell tumors, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 100, pages 663-671, 2008 [abstract]. Risks 355.

New studies have confirmed the numbers of workplace cancers has been massively under-estimated. Investigators from Massey University’s Centre for Public Health Research in New Zealand say work-related cancers affect between 700 and 1,000 people a year in the country and kill 400 yet fewer than 40 cases a year are notified to the Labour Department.

Risks 350.

Australia’s biggest building union is calling on the federal government to start an urgent investigation into the use of formaldehyde in household products. CFMEU said formaldehyde poses a real cancer risk to workers and must be subject to stringent laws.

CFMEU news release [no longer available online]. Atsuya Takagi and others. Induction of mesothelioma in p53+/- mouse by intraperitoneal application of multi-wall carbon nanotube, Journal of Toxicological Sciences, volume 33, number 1, pages 105-116, 2008 [pdf]. Risks 354.

Union bodies worldwide are increasing the pressure for an end to workplace cancer risks. Australian national union federation ACTU has launched a zero cancer campaign and says more than 1.5 million workers may be exposed to cancer-causing substances on the job without even knowing it.

BWI news release, 28 April 2008. Global Unions occupational cancer prevention campaign

A global epidemic of preventable industrial cancers is killing hundreds of thousands each year because governments and employers are failing to take simple and effective preventive action. A news release said top cancer prevention experts and trade union officers and workplace reps from around the world, meeting in Scotland in April 2008, would reveal the full extent of the problem and will call for the use of safer substances and processes and a phase out of the worst cancer-causing culprits.

Stirling University news release. Risks 351,.

The Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) has launched a new Chemicals Health Monitor website – an online source of information about chemicals and related diseases. HEAL says the new resource “provides a comprehensive compilation of recent information and evidence” about the links between chemical contaminants and ill-health.

Chemicals Health Monitor website. Risks 347.