The omission of occupational cancer from a new Health and Safety Executive online guide on metalworking fluids has been criticised by a top expert. Dr Frank Mirer, director of health and safety at US autoworkers’ union UAW, said in a letter to HSE: ‘I find the omission of a mention of occupational cancer in the new page on metalworking fluids to be a significant gap.
HSE news release, 19 May 2005 and metalworking fluids webpage. Risks 208.
Standards for chemical exposures worldwide are heavily influenced by those originating in the US – which is bad news for workers, because new research shows those standards are heavily influenced by industry. Using the carcinogen vinyl chloride as an example, US academics found industry influence on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standard-setting process had led to ‘weakened safeguards’. Writing in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers conclude “the efforts of the regulated industries often outweigh the ability of the public, unions and public interest groups to participate in developing regulations.”
Jennifer Beth Sass, Barry Castleman and David Wallinga. Vinyl chloride: A case study of data suppression and misrepresentation, Environmental Health Perspectives, published online 24 March 2005, doi:10.1289/ehp.7716 [abstract and full paper].
Passive smoking kills more than 11,000 a year in the UK – many more than previously thought, a study has found. The British Medical Journal study also gives a figure for people dying from second-hand smoke exposure in the workplace, putting the total at over 600 a year. Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia compiled the report from UK databases of causes of death, employment, structure of households and levels of active smoking and exposure to passive smoking.
Konrad Jamrozik. Estimate of deaths attributable to passive smoking among UK adults: database analysis, BMJ, doi:10.1136/bmj.38370.496632.8F, published 2 March 2005. Risks 197.
Dr Samuel Epstein, emeritus professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of several key books on cancer risks, says “based on minimal estimates” occupational carcinogenic exposures are responsible for 10 per cent of overall cancer mortality adding that for certain occupational exposures, mortality rates are much higher. He told Hazards magazine that “lifestyle academics” including Sir Richard Doll “have consciously or unconsciously become the well-touted and enthusiastic mouthpiece for industry interests, urging regulatory inaction and public complacency”, adding the “puristic pretensions of ‘the lifestylers’ for critical objectivity are only exceeded by their apparent indifference to or rejection of a steadily accumulating body of information on the permeation of the environment and workplace with industrial carcinogens and the impact of such involuntary exposures on human health.”
Cancer-gate. How to win the losing cancer war. Epstein S. ISBN 0-89503-354-2, Baywood Publishing Company Inc, USA, 2005.
There is powerful evidence that an outright ban on public smoking would save lives, doctors’ leaders from across the world say. A report by the British Medical Association’s Tobacco Control Resource Centre describes the success of anti-smoking laws in other countries. Ireland has seen a drop in cigarette sales and the US state California has reported fewer lung cancers.
Women with jobs that involve metalworking fluids may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer, a preliminary study suggests. The new study looked at women who spent at least three years working at one of three large car manufacturing plants in the US. Among the nearly 4,700 women the researchers followed, the risk of breast cancer increased in tandem with exposure to soluble, oil-based metalworking fluids. Writing in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, the authors say: ‘This preliminary investigation revealed weak evidence of an association between lifetime cumulative exposure to soluble metalworking fluids and breast cancer risk.’
Deborah Thompson and others. Occupational exposure to metalworking fluids and risk of breast cancer among female autoworkers, American Journal of Industrial Medicine, volume 47, issue 2, pages 153-160, 2005.
Global asbestos plc blocked a deal that would have made it more difficult to unload asbestos on the developing world. It bought scientists and column inches in national papers. And it is killing hundreds of thousands each year. Hazards exposes the global asbestos industry’s desperate battle for survival – at any price.
Hazards 85, January-March 2004.
Unions in Canada are demanding that action is taken to tackle to escalating toll of work-related cancers. The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) says its new national campaign will help workers learn about exposure to cancer-causing materials on the job and spells out how to build a campaign to make their workplace and their communities safer.
Preventing cancer: A campaign for workers; Prevent cancer: A campaign guide, CLC, 2005. Documents no longer accessible online.
A Department of Health expert committee has found ‘limited evidence’ of a link between occupational exposure to pesticides and prostate cancer and called for further investigations. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with over 24,700 new cases a year and is the second largest cause of death from cancer in the UK. There were 9,900 deaths reported in 2002 accounting for around 13 per cent of cancer deaths in men.
Department of Health Committee on Carcinogenicity statement, January 2005. The Guardian, 10 January 2005. Risks 190.
Workers exposed to the pesticide chlorpyrifos may have an elevated risk of lung cancer, according to a report from US government researchers. Scientists at the National Cancer Institute found that among the more than 54,000 farmers and insecticide applicators they followed for six years, those with the highest chlorpyrifos exposure had twice the risk of developing lung cancer as those who did not work with the pesticide. A later paper from this study linked cancers to exposure to another pesticide, diazonon.
Won Jin Lee, Aaron Blair and others. Cancer incidence among pesticide applicators exposed to chlorpyrifos in the Agricultural Health Study, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, volume 96, pages 1781-1789, 2004 [abstract].