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Work
clothes implicated in spontaneous abortions
Benzene and low birthweights
Night shift workers don't adjust
UK Government's
chemical exposure standards unsafe
Attack on boredom
Chemical dangers of computer chip industry
Electromagnetic fields linked to hormone
related cancer
CAREX - workers exposure data base covering 11 countries
Industrial cancer clusters
Double danger for workers exposed to chemicals
and radiation
Alliance between US workers' unions and environmental
campaigners
Those with the least say over their work have more
back injuries
On line health and safety advice
Pancreatic cancer in the electronics industry
Little justice for dead workers
Over 5,000 women and men died in the 11th September attack on the World
Trade Center. In the following days President George Bush called for “infinite
justice” and a “crusade”. Also in 2001, 5,912 US citizens
died in accidents at work, but there was no presidential calls for justice
for the families or redress for the public hurt. Quite the opposite: President
Bush has appointed Eugenie Scala, a long-time opponent of protective workplace
legislation, to be his top legal adviser on safety and employment issues.
A succession of safety laws have already been axed or stalled.
Everyday workplace accidents kill over a million people worldwide each
year. A further million die of work-related cancers. Employers are rarely
brought to justice, and almost never face the manslaughter or criminal
charges that would normally be levelled where negligence, corner-cutting,
contempt for the law or apathy led to a loss of life. There is a wilful
disregard for human rights and justice at work. Multinational companies,
with Government complicity, spend millions to evade justice at home. They
deny workers their medical records and fair compensation. They victimise
those who dare complain. They impose dangerously slack standards at home
and even more dangerously low safety standards abroad.
One of the most appalling examples is Union Carbide’s pesticides
plant in Bhopal (India). When it blew up in 1984 an estimated 16,000 died
and tens of thousands have developed chronic illnesses since. The 14,824
compensations for death agreed so far average £900. No executive
has yet faced any charges. The US courts have refused requests to consider
the ongoing compensation dispute in the States.
Another example is UK-based multinational company Cape plc’s asbestos
mine and mill near Prieska (South Africa), which dumps asbestos-ridden
waste around the village. 6,000 of the village’s 25,000 inhabitants
are dying a slow death from asbestos disease. Hundreds have already died
but Cape faces no criminal charges. Instead it has created an £8
million fund to fight off compensation claims and made strenuous efforts
to stop any claims being heard in the UK. Thankfully, these efforts have
failed. A UK court should hear the case in April 2002. The international
union federation ICEM urges the four major UK investors - Rutland Trust
plc, Monpellier Group plc, Fidelity Investment International and M. &
G. Investment Management - to settle the victims’ claims.
Ed.- Perhaps the court could also order the companies to remove the dumped
asbestos.
(8671) Hazards 1.10.01
Wal-Mart/Asda caught again
Asda owners Wal-Mart, the US’s largest employer, is to be tried in
over 15 different courts for workers’ rights violations including
victimising people who raise safety risks and threatening to deduct fines
from bonus payments.
(9131) Ethical Consumer 1.10.02 p7
Disney does n’ do the right thing
Chief Executive Officer of the Disney Corporation Michael Eisner pays
himself approximately $63,000 an hour. One of his Bangladeshi workers
would have to work for 210 years to earn this amount.
For the last eight years, young women at the Shah Makdhum factory have
been forced to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, making Winnie the
Pooh T-shirts. They get just five cents for each T-shirt they make, although
this retails in the US at $17.99. They are denied maternity benefits.
When the women stood up for their rights, Disney simply cut and ran, dumping
the women on the street with nothing. The US National Labour Committee
is appalled by Disney’s behaviour and, with the charity War on Want,
has launched a ‘Disney to do the Right Thing’ campaign: to stay
in Bangladesh, to clean up the factory, to pay a fair wage, to guarantee
the women’s human rights.
ACTION - Demand that Disney treat their workers fairly. Write a letter
to Michael Eisner, Chief Executive, Walt Disney Company, 500 South Buena
Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521, USA. Organise a demo or distribute leaflets
outside cinemas showing Disney films. For more information on the campaign
and a sample letter visit website www.waronwant.org
(9180) Ethical Consumer 1.8.02 p6
Dead boring
Dr. Benjamin C. Amick and colleagues at the University of Texas have found
that people tend to die earlier when they are in jobs where they have
few opportunities to decide what work to do and how to go about it. Benjamin
explains that struggling to stay awake or alert is as stressful as too
much pressure and claims that such jobs are completely unnecessary. “The
sad thing is, we know how to make work meaningful, and it doesn’t
come at the cost of reduced productivity.” The research followed
the health fortunes of 5,000 households across 25 years.
Original research: Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine 1.6.02
(9176) Hazards 1.7.02 p8
Organic solvents increase
risk of MS
When Riise Trond and colleagues from Bergen University (Norway) compared
the medical histories of 11,542 painters, 36,899 construction workers
and 9,314 food-processing workers across 16 years (1970-1986), they found
that painters (who have high exposure to a variety of solvents) ran twice
the risk of developing MS.
(9299) Trond,R et al. Epidemiology 2002;13:718-20
Plants hoover up stress and pollution
Putting plants into office environments is one of the best ways of increasing
productivity and staff morale. According to Dr. Ronald Wood from Sydney’s
University of Technology, increasing productivity by just 1% saves the
equivalent of four times the average cost of heating or air-conditioning
the whole building!
ä Washington State University’s (US) Professor Virginia Lohr
found that putting plants onto desks in windowless offices increased reaction
times by 12% whilst reducing stress levels
ä Surrey University’s Helen Russell found that plants reduced
stress instantly and, over time, absentee levels by 60%
ä Professor Tove Fjeld from Oslo’s University of Agriculture
(Norway) found that plants increased office workers’ concentration
levels by 33%, reduced headaches by 45%, dry throats and coughs by 33%,
and colds and runny noses by 11%
Ronald Wood recognises that the average office exposes workers to a cocktail
of disease-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air.
Tove explains that soil and plants’ leaves both absorb chemicals
in the air. These are broken down by the roots into food for the plants.
A similar process allows plants to control humidity, resulting in less
colds and sore throats.
The best plants to install are those which require a lot of watering and
have large leaf areas. These are particularly active and both help humidity
levels and absorb the most chemicals, e.g. peace lily, kentia palm, fine-leafed
fig, ‘Janet Craig’ and devil’s ivy.
(9350) Peta Bee. Times 11.6.02 p13
Repetitive strain injury
- stats
According to the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), one in fifty British
workers now suffer from repetitive strain injury. Symptoms include pain
and immobility in the joints, nerves and muscles from the fingers to the
neck. In 2001 5.4 million work days were lost because of RSI and every
day six workers left their jobs forever because of it. About a third of
workers with RSI are under 45. It affects men and women equally.
A survey by the employment agency Pertemps found that 90% of workers had
received no information or training about the illness. 50% complained
of aches and pains in their hands and lower arms as a result of using
computers and 30% had already suffered from RSI.
(9031) Hazards 1.4.02 p18
High cancer in the glen
The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) have found unusually high rates
of lung, stomach, breast and brain cancers in National Semiconductor workers
in Scotland’s Silicon Glen near Greenock. An international group
of scientists agree that the findings warrant further, independent investigation
by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
In 2001 National Semiconductor was condemned for spying on and organising
a dirty tricks campaign to discredit health campaigners.
Ed.- Semiconductor workers worldwide take twice as many days off because
of occupational illness as workers in other manufacturing sectors. The
huge amounts of toxic materials the industry uses - many known or suspected
carcinogens - include hydrochloric acid, arsenic, cadmium, lead, methyl
chloroform, toluene, benzene, acetone, trichloroethylene and arsine gas.
Director of toxicology at the University of Maryland (US), Bruce Fowler,
believes that it is probably the mixture of chemicals which is causing
the problem. Many of the chemicals are used singly in other industries
without, apparently, damaging health.
(9078) Hazards 1.1.02 P8
Cancer wafers
The computer chip (semiconductor) industry is probably the largest industrial
expansion in history. Starting in Santa Clara County’s Silicon Valley
just over 25 years ago, there are now 900 computer chip plants worldwide
and 127 more under construction. However, this $150 billion industry brings
its own toll on human health. Semiconductor workers lose twice as many
workdays through occupational illness as workers in other manufacturing
sectors. The huge amounts of toxic materials the industry uses - many
known or suspected carcinogens - include hydrochloric acid, arsenic, cadmium,
lead, methyl chloroform, toluene, benzene, acetone, trichloroethylene
and arsine gas. Director of toxicology at the University of Maryland (US),
Bruce Fowler, believes that it is probably the mixture of chemicals which
is causing the problem. Many of the chemicals are used singly in other
industries without, apparently, damaging health.
The semiconductor industry is reluctantly responding to criticism. It
funded research into the effects of glycol ethers and removed them from
the workplace when it found they increased the rate of miscarriages by
40%. There are now three major lawsuits running against semiconductor
manufacturers, issued by families which believe their spouses or parents
died or contracted cancer through their work. Scientists predict that
there will be a significant rise in the cancer rate in the computer chip
industry because cancer can take 20-30 years to show up in exposed workers
and the industry is relatively new.
Semiconductors come at enormous environmental cost as well. According
to the May/June 1997 issue of E - The Environmental Magazine, just one
8” computer wafer containing hundreds of chips requires, on average,
27lbs of chemicals and 29 cubic feet of hazardous gases to manufacture,
and produces 9lbs of hazardous waste and 3,787 gallons of waste water.
Silicon Valley houses 29 US Environmental Protection Agency ‘disaster
sites’. More than 100 different contaminants have been measured above
safety levels in some drinking water there.
(6071-74) Environmental Health Perspectives 1.9.99 pA453
“Preposterous” study challenged
In 1998 the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) backed a study into
health fears at the National Semiconductor plant in Greenock (Scotland).
The researchers concluded that female workers ran no increased risk of
miscarriage. The way the study was conducted received stinging criticism
in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hazards
but no review was ordered by the Government and the matter slipped out
of the media.
Reports of cancers, fertility problems, reproductive illnesses and miscarriages
continue. A workers group, Phase 2, has been set up to push for further
investigation. It has now documented 170 current and ex-workers who link
their illness to the site. In response, another HSE study, this time into
alleged cancer risks, is now to take place, but has already been condemned
as “preposterous” by Dr. Joe Ladou of the University of California’s
School of Medicine (US) and other eminent occupational health specialists.
They claim that the study’s design will not involve sufficient numbers
of workers or job types to measure the true risk of cancer at the plant.
National Semiconductor have done all they can to avoid further investigation.
Rather than look into Phase 2’s claims they employed a local public
relations company, Beattie Media, to help co-ordinate a ‘dirty tricks’
campaign. This included:
ä Beattie Media female workers posing as clean room workers in an
attempt to dupe journalists and a BBC TV investigation
ä surveillance on Phase 2’s founder Jim McCourt and his employer,
The Inverclyde Occupational Heath Project, to gather information “to
undermine the credibility of such individuals and groups”
Jim McCourt also reports that his office was broken into and ransacked
and that he was roughed up early in the campaign.
(8672) Hazards 1.10.01 p14
Call centres “could
do better”
Whilst dismissing claims that all call centres are ‘sweat shops’,
a UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) study of 1,000 centres criticised
many for inadequate training, constantly changing employees’ work
stations (‘hot desking’), causing unnecessary boredom through
compulsory scripting (even how to say hello and goodbye), and causing
additional stress with full-time electronic surveillance of performance
coupled to demands for higher productivity.
The report recognised an increased risk of both physical and mental illness
through boredom and stress. It recommended that call centre workers should
be given:
ä a five minute break from their screen every hour to reduce stress
and exercise the eyes
ä time to recover from and discuss an abusive call with a colleague
ä better training
ä less scripting
ä permanent workstations where they can adjust desk, chairs, screens
and keyboards to their individual needs
(8674) Paul Kendall. Daily Mail 11.12.01 p34
Unsocial hours, worse health
In response to increased demand for 24-hour services, one in five workers
in more industrially developed countries now work outside normal office
hours. This can play havoc with our biological clock (sleep, healing,
etc.), leading to (e.g.) gastro-intestinal disorders and heart disease.
Shanta Rajaratnam and Professor Josephine Arendt from Surrey University’s
Centre for Chronobiology write: “Biological time ... greatly affects
the productivity and health of a nation. The cost to the nation’s
health of working out of phase with our biological clocks is probably
incalculable at present. ... Employers and individuals need to be aware
of the major performance and alertness decrements associated with night
activity and how to best manage and counteract them. ... Greater regulation
of work practices during these times (i.e. outside the 9-5 working day)
is warranted.”
A study in the Lancet estimated the cost to the US in reduced performance
and accidents at about $16 billion a year
(Lancet 2001;358:999-1005).
(8675) Jeremy Laurance. Independent 21.9.01 p16
What Doctors Don’t Tell You 1.11.2001
Night shifts and breast cancer
Two new studies published in the Journal of the US National Cancer Institute
(1.10.01) suggest a link between working night shifts and an increased
risk of developing breast cancer. Scott Davis and colleagues at the Fred
Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle (US) found that women who
regularly worked night shift for three years or less were about 40% more
likely to develop the disease. Women who worked night shift for four years
or more ran a 60% increased risk. (In a study published last year, Danish
scientists found that women who had worked predominantly at night for
at least six months in their working life were 50% more likely to develop
the disease.)
The results of the latest study were based on the work history of 763
women with breast cancer and 741 without. Changes in melatonin levels
in men doing nightshifts may increase the risk of some types of male cancer,
according to Dr Davis.
The analysis by researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in
Boston (US) of the results of the US Nurses Health Study (78,562 nurses
studied 1988-1998) found an 8% increased risk in nurses who worked rotating
night shifts at least three times a month for 1-29 years, and a 30-36%
increased risk in those working to that pattern for more than 30 years
(Hanson,J et al. Epidemiology 2001;12(1):74-77).
Both teams suspect that interrupted melatonin production (which occurs
when the eye is exposed to light during what is supposed to be a sleeping
period) is the cause. It is known that low melatonin levels increase the
production of oestrogen and that excessive levels of oestrogen increase
the risk of breast cancer.
Ed.- The precise mechanism is unproven. Previous studies have implicated
(a) disruption of night-time secretion of the hormone melatonin, and (b)
high nocturnal exposure to electromagnetic fields.
(8678) Nicholas Wapshott. Times 18.10.01 p19
Work clothes implicated
Italian research has established that the partners of pesticides applicators
working for Rome’s pest control centre ran 4-7 times the risk of
spontaneous abortions compared to a matched group whose husbands worked
in food retailing. The pesticide applicators’ wives had 67 children
and 26 spontaneous abortions compared to the food retailers’ wives
90 children and 7 spontaneous abortions. The researchers suggest that
the wives were exposed to pesticides residues on their husbands’
work clothes and that these pesticides then contaminated the womb. What
appear to be highly questionable work practices by the men’s employer
may have made the problem much worse. Not only would their clothes have
been contaminated during the spraying, their job also involved preparing
the pesticide mixes, which they carried out without personal protective
equipment.
(7435-36) Petrelli, G et al. European
Journal of Epidemiology 2000;16:391-93
back
to the top
Benzene and low birthweights
Dafang Chen and colleagues at Harvard’s School of Public Health (US)
have linked maternal exposure to benzene and stress at work with reduced
birthweight in their babies. Eliminating other confounding factors such
as passive smoking, exposure to noise and physical exertion at work, they
established the following average reductions:
• No exposure - average birthweight of baby - 3445 grams
• Exposure to benzene only - average birthweight of baby - 3430 grams
• Exposure to workplace stress only - average birthweight of baby
- 3426 grams
•Exposure to both benzene and workplace stress - average birthweight
of baby - 3262 grams
Earlier studies by other research teams have shown that the toxins in
benzene can reduce birthweight by suppressing cell growth in rapid growth
areas like bone marrow and by damaging cells generally. The researchers
suggest that stress could reduce birthweight by increasing the release
of adrenal and hypothalamic hormones, and speculate that the two processes
could increase the negative effect of each other.
Ed.- Low birthweight can condemn the new arrival to lifelong relative
poor health. The study’s findings reinforce fears that even very
low exposures to benzene through its mother can damage the foetus. In
this case, average maternal exposure was only a fifth of the safety limit
recommended by the Occupational Safety & Health Association (OSHA).
It also highlights the need to consider combinations of possible factors
rather than factors in isolation.
(7426-29) Dafang Chen et al. Occupational
and Environmental Medicine 2000;57:661-67
back
to the top
Groggy owls
The general assumption that people working night shifts gradually adjust
to a point where they have all the faculties of day workers is wrong,
according to Prof. Robert Foster and Dr. Robert Lucas of Imperial College,
London. People can, indeed, work night shifts on a permanent basis, but
they behave as if they’ve consumed two and a half pints of beer or
four whiskies, their physical strength is less, their risk of developing
diabetes, heart disease or gastric disorders increased.
The body functions best when in line with the day-night cycle, but there
are ‘owls’ and ‘larks’. In most people body temperature
reaches a low point at around four in the morning, then gradually increasing
until waking. In ‘owls’ that low peak occurs at around 6am,
in ‘larks’ at around 2am. The doctors also report that the average
person now has seven hours sleep a night, compared to an average nine
hours a few decades ago.
(7229-30) Daily Mail 26.9.00
back
to the top
Hazards magazine has accused the UK Government of inconsistency and lack of caution in its setting of chemical exposure standards. It also points out that the safety thresholds are often much lower in many other European countries and North America. Some examples:
• the UK maximum exposure level (MEL) for arsenic is 0.1mg per cubic metre. This is thought to give workers a 1 in 15 chance of dying from arsenic poisoning across a 35-year working lifetime. The MEL for beryllium is set to give a 1 in 1250 chance of dying over a 35-year working lifetime. Why the difference?
• The Dutch Government has adopted a single standard of an exposure level leading to the death of 1 in 10,000 workers exposed, and is trying, where possible, to improve that to 1 in a million
• Whereas Australia's safety board NICNAS has classified the industrial solvent trichloroethylene as a carcinogenic and possible mutagenic (and beaten off attempts by Dow Chemicals to overturn this decision through the courts), the UK's Health & Safety Executive does not produce any information sheet about its use - this despite 20 years of campaigning by the unions to replace it with safer alternatives.
As the UK does not routinely use international risk assessments to set its safety limits, it is necessary to go onto the Internet for this information. There are two good sites: The US Environmental Protection Agency's IRIS data (www.epa.gov/ordntrnt/ord/dbases/iris); the Toxicological Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA - www.tera.org).
(6737) Simon Pickvance. Hazards 1.4.00 p14
The Danish Government considers its campaign against boring, repetitive work a huge success. Since 1993 it has reduced boring work by 25% and won support from 90% of companies which offered boring jobs.
(6740) Hazards 1.4.00 p21
The computer chip (semiconductor) industry is probably the largest industrial expansion in history. Starting in Santa Clara County's Silicon Valley just over 25 years ago, there are now 900 computer chip plants world-wide and 127 more under construction. However, this $150 billion industry brings its own toll on human health. Semiconductor workers lose twice as many workdays through occupational illness as workers in other manufacturing sectors. The huge amounts of toxic materials the industry uses - many known or suspected carcinogens - include hydrochloric acid, arsenic, cadmium, lead, methyl chloroform, toluene, benzene, acetone, trichloroethylene and arsine gas. Director of toxicology at the University of Maryland (US), Bruce Fowler, believes that it is probably the mixture of chemicals which is causing the problem. Many of the chemicals are used singly in other industries without, apparently, damaging health.
The semiconductor industry is reluctantly responding to criticism. It funded research into the effects of glycol ethers and removed them from the workplace when it found they increased the rate of miscarriages by 40%. There are now three major lawsuits running against semiconductor manufacturers, issued by families which believe their spouses or parents died or contracted cancer through their work. Scientists predict that there will be a significant rise in the cancer rate in the computer chip industry because cancer can take 20-30 years to show up in exposed workers and the industry is relatively new.
Semiconductors come at enormous environmental cost as well. According to the May/June 1997 issue of E - The Environmental Magazine, just one 8'' computer wafer containing hundreds of chips requires, on average, 27lbs of chemicals and 29 cubic feet of hazardous gases to manufacture, and produces 9lbs of hazardous waste and 3,787 gallons of waste water. Silicon Valley houses 29 US Environmental Protection Agency 'disaster sites'. More than 100 different contaminants have been measured above safety levels in some drinking water there.
(6071-74) Environmental Health Perspectives 1.9.99 pA453
A large Swedish study covering 2.4 million people and their exposure to electromagnetic fields at work has found a small but significant link between exposure and increased risk of contracting a hormone-related cancer. For women these were breast, ovarian and endometrial cancer, for men, prostate and testicular cancer. Dr. Birgitta Floderus of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden), author of the study, notes that these are also all cancers which have increased in incidence in recent years. She suggests that some sort of interaction between the electromagnetic fields and gonadal hormones, possibly oestrogen, may be the mechanism.
(6083-85) Microwave News 1.11.99 p2
Co-operation between scientists from eleven countries has produced a new database - CAREX - to estimate workplace exposure to carcinogens. One of its first findings for the period 1990-1993 is that about 32 million workers were exposed to carcinogens (23%). The most common exposures were to solar radiation for 75+% of working time (9.1 million workers) and to environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoking) for 75+% of working time. Other frequent exposures included crystalline silica, diesel exhaust, radon, wood dust, lead and lead compounds and benzene. The UK's record was average amongst EU countries, but it had a high showing on exposure to wood dust and benzene.
(6096-97) Kauppinen,T et al. Occupational & Environmental Medicine 2000;57:10-18
The International Labour Organisation estimates that, in 1999, 34% of cancers were work-related, as were 25% of injuries, 21% of chronic respiratory disease, and 15% of cardiovascular disease. Twenty years ago the UK's GMB Union tried to organise a series of cancer prevention seminars but could not find one British scientist of stature willing to speak. Today the price of their silence is evident. Cancer clusters map well with the industries that cause them:
• Shipbuilding and asbestos factories mark hotspot areas for the asbestos cancer mesothelioma, e.g. Glasgow, Tyneside and Portsmouth
• PVC factories mark areas with high levels of the liver cancer angio-sarcom
• The lung cancer oats cell carcinoma marks those factories where workers were exposed to bis-chloro-methyl ether, a potent carcinogen
• Nasal cancers pinpoint exposures in leather and cabinet-making centres
Global safety agencies are calling for "ethically correct and economically sound" measures to avert a costly epidemic of occupational disease in the 21st century.
(5831-33) Hazards 1.7.99 p10
When an initial study into a suspected excess of cancer amongst workers in the metallurgy department of France's Atomic Energy Commissariat failed to reassure critics, a second study was commissioned. It found that, although there was no evidence of excessive death rates linked to working at the plant, there was a link between mortality rates and the length of time workers had been employed there. The scientists stress the importance of taking exposures to chemicals into account (as well as radiation exposure) when considering workers' health in the nuclear industry.
(6098-99) Baysson,H et al. Occupational & Environmental Medicine 2000;57:188-94
Increasingly convinced that what is good for the environment is also good for jobs and working conditions, US workers' unions have joined environmental campaigners to create The Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment. It will hold employers to account if it treats workers or the environment badly, as well as lobby the World Trade Organisation to build employment and environmental criteria into its world trade rules. Another surprising but welcome alliance is between campaigners The Sierra Club and Amnesty International, who have launched a world-wide campaign to protect environmental campaigners from harassment, imprisonment, torture and murder.
Current hotspots include a gas pipeline project in Burma, an oil pipeline in Chad and Cameroon, the Three Gorges dam in China and a massive dam project in India.
(6526-27) Grist Magazine 10.12.99 Original source: MSNBC, Associated Press 10.12.99
Ann Myers of Alfred State College in New York and colleagues at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore (US) have discovered that workers with little say over how they did their work suffered twice as many back injuries as those that had a say. The two groups of workers were doing similar work. Possible malingerers were weeded out by only including workers who had been free of injuries for at least a year.
(5560) New Scientist 10.7.99 p25
Original research: American Journal of Public Health 1999;89:1036
The 20-million member International Confederation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM) is now providing on-line advice for shopfloor workers and union health and safety officials in the sectors it represents. The pages include ICEM 'Safecards' on workplace hazards, giving detailed, easy-to-understand advice on common chemicals with "best practice safe handling guidelines and other information essential to rank and file workers".
Website: www.icemna.org/ersrch4.htm
(5834-35) Hazards 1.7.99 p14
A Chinese study has identified a high risk of pancreatic cancer in men working in the electrical and electronics industry. No significant link was found in women, but the researchers attribute this to the low number of women working in these industries. Men ran a sevenfold increased risk overall, with those who had worked in the industries for more than 35 years having more than a ninefold increased risk. The researchers point out that the risk may be due to exposure to solvents, solder fumes and cutting oils as much as exposure to electromagnetic fields.
(5882-83) Microwave News 1.5.99 p15
Original research: American Journal of Industrial Medicine
1999;35:76-81
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