Children living too close to industrial plants in Great Britain can face an increased risk of developing cancer, a large scale study found. The study, which examined data for 22,458 children who died of leukaemia and ‘solid’ cancers, found the cancer risk is greatest within a few hundred yards of pollutions sources and tapers with distance. Excesses were found in children whose addresses were close to workplaces including oil facilities and major uses of petroleum products, users of kilns and furnaces and airfields, railways, highways and harbours.
A 1997 US study found increased levels of three cancers in drycleaning and laundry workers. Causes of death in a group of workers from these industries across 28 US states was compared to those for all industries. Among drycleaning and laundry workers, there was an increased risk of deaths from cancer of the oesophagus and larynx. Among female workers aged 65 years or more there was also increased deaths from cancer of the genital organs. The survey raised concerns about exposure to the common drycleaning solvent perc (perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene). In 2014, IARC rated perc as “probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A).”
UK regulator backs an asbestos ban for the first time A February 1997 statement from the UK Health and Safety Commission backed calls for a ban on asbestos. In what was described by Hazards magazine as “a shock departure from previous policy”, the statement recommended to the environment secretary “that the government continue to work in the European Union to extend the EU’s existing ban on asbestos to cover all uses of chrysotile (‘white’) asbestos – except for a limited number of essential uses where there are no satisfactory alternatives.” HSC said a consultation document would be issued, ahead of a ban coming into force in 1999. A ban in the UK took effect in November 1999.
The instructions provided by chemical suppliers can be of little or no use to chemical users, even those using cancer-causing substances, a study has found. The project by European Union health and safety enforcement agencies on dyestuff safety found nearly 40 per cent of new dyestuffs were on the market illegally “putting workers and the environment at risk from exposure to them,” a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) news release said. HSE added: “Of particular concern was that half of the suppliers or merchants dealing in hazardous dyes (eg carcinogenic), had inadequately labelled sustances, thus increasing the potential risk to users… 150 substances, out of the 4,000 dyestuffs checked, were found to be hazardous (eg. sensitising or carcinogenic), and around 50 per cent of these were imported without a proper label indicating the hazardous properties.”
Europe-wide check finds 40 per cent of new dyestuffs illegally marketed, according to report on enforcement project. HSE news release E191:96, 6 November 1996. See Hazards report.
Sir Richard Doll, lead author of the much-cited and officially embraced 1981 Doll/Peto report, played down the occupational and environmental contribution to cancer throughout the latter decades of his career, including actively opposing further control measures. In a 1996 paper in the journal Carcinogenesis he wrote: “Two categories of cause remain for which I see little possibility of material benefit from their further control, namely the hazards of occupation and pollution.”
In an editorial in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Philip Landrigan notes that 1997 was the 100th anniversary of the first reports of benzene causing blood disorders. It has subsequently been linked to other blood diseases, including leukaemia. Landrigan comments: “The tragedy of benzene is that it has taken so long for science to be translated into protective action.”
A large scale study in China found an increased risk of blood cancers in exposed workers. The study involved over 70,000 workers exposed to benzene. Painters, printers and workers involved in the manufacture of footwear, paint and various chemicals were investigated. The researchers found an increased incidence of leukaemia among these workers and also an increase in malignant lymphoma. “Employment in benzene-associated occupations in China is associated with a wide spectrum of myelogenous and lymphocytic malignant diseases and related disorders,” the paper concluded.
Dockers’ union T&G (now part of Unite) issued an urgent warning in 1996 to members working with nuts. The union said it was concerned that imported nuts were frequently contaminated with aflatoxins, a cause of liver cancer. The union said that in the year up to May 1996 one in every four containers of groundnuts, pistachios, walnuts and cashew nuts tested by Southampton Port Authorities had aflatoxin contamination above legally permitted levels. Union members working on the docks first became concerned when environmental health officers examining nut cargoes appeared wearing positive pressure respirators. The Health and Safety Executive has told workers that paper masks were good enough.
Aflatoxins in peanut dust, T&G Docks Section circular, 1996.
A Hazards magazine factsheet warned that many cancers are caused by preventable workplace exposures. It noted a wide range of substances, processes, biological agents, environments and work practices were linked to occupational cancer. Hazards also noted that UK workers may be exposed unawares. Labels on a silica based cavity fill compound used by members of the construction union UCATT warned it “may cause skin, eye and respiratory tract irritation.” When the label fell off it revealed a US label underneath. This had the additional warning: “IARC has concluded that crystalline silica may cause cancer based on animal data with limited evidence in humans.” Silica is now an IARC recognised cause of lung cancer in humans.
Work causes cancer, Hazards, number 54, January-March 1996.
Hazards magazine in 1996 accused the Health and Safety Executive of a “deadly decade of neglect.” In 1984, a ‘Goodbye dusty’ asbestos initiative was set to be the regulator’s biggest ever campaign. Posters were printed and ready to distribute to every building site in the country. They told workers to ‘STOP WORK!’ rather than risk exposure because “asbestos dust can kill.” But then the campaign was axed. Hazards says HSE “hastily withdrew the poster, following pressure from the construction industry.” It was a costly mistake in every sense. HSE backed research in 1995 revealed tens of thousands of construction workers would die as a result of exposure to asbestos, with at least a quarter of all deaths from the asbestos cancer mesothelioma in construction workers. Hazards noted: “At the press conference launching the new, 1995, construction asbestos campaign, HSE’s Peter Graham resurrected the warning HSE had been too craven to stand by a decade before. ‘If you think a substance is asbestos, stop work.’ This long postponed warning will come too late for some.”
The long goodbye, Hazards, number 53, October-December 1995.
A continually-updated, annotated bibliography of occupational cancer research produced by Hazards magazine, the Alliance for Cancer Prevention and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
