Carcinogens in the Workplace

Abstract

When international age-adjusted cancer incidence rates first became available in the early 1960's, patterns prevalent in the low risk countries of Africa and Asia were compared by Higginson―2 with those pre vailing in the United States' white popula tion or in the western European countries. The total incidence of cancer in a hypo thetical population at minimal risk was calculated by summating the lowest age adjusted rate for each site from the most appropriate country. Ugandans, Nige rians, and the South African blacks, for example, were at lowest risk for cancers of the lung, stomach, large intestine, cor pus uteri and kidney. The Singapore regis try recorded the lowest rates for cancers of the pancreas, urinary bladder and breast. Conversely, the rate for primary hepato 54-60,and 8:3, 107-119, 1978.The article was originally titled: â€oe¿ The Workplaceas a Cause of Cancer,―and appeared in two parts. cellular carcinoma was highest in Mozam bicans and in the South African blacks, whereas it was lowest in the United States white and black populations. Carcinoma of the nasopharynx was highest in Singa pore. Higginson estimated that the age adjusted cancer incidence in the hypothet ical population at minimal risk was one fifteenth of that in the males, and one ninth of that in the females of high risk countries. A preliminary analysis indi cated that the hypothetical cancer inci dence was one-third of that observed in the United States white population. From these geographical differences, it was pos tulated that 70-90 percent of human can cers are likely to be due to environmental factors and, by implication, preventable after extrinsic factors are identified.Studies of various migrant populations have measured shifts in cancer mortality and incidence as groups move from one part of the world to the other. If genetic factors were primarily responsible for the international differences in risk, then the prevailing rates among population groups that migrate should remain relatively fixed. However, the evidence to date in dicates that the risks of cancer in organs of the digestive (i.e., stomach and large intestine) and reproductive (i.e., breast, corpus uteri and ovary) systems were dis placed from the rates prevailing in the country of origin toward those experi enced by indigenous residents of the host country.3

Continued Diminished Prevalence of the Lucke Renal Adenocarcinoma in Minnesota Leopard Frogs

“…Some authors suggest a causal relationship between environmental factors (e.g., automobile exhausts, industrial chemicals, biocides, etc.) and cancer (Higginson, 1969;Schottenfeld and Haas, 1979). Does the present study indicate that pollution control in Minnesota has improved so much that the prevalence of frog renal tumors is correspondingly reduced?…”

Cancer and the workplace

“…The history of occupational cancer identification and control has been recounted by many authors 8 . The potential for work‐related cancers has been recognized at least since the work of Ramazzini in the sixteenth century, and in fact our modern understanding of the influence of environmental factors on human cancer is due in large measure to occupational studies, ironically many of them drawn from the exposures of people in the health care professions.…”

Empirically and Institutionally Rich Legal and Moral Philosophy

“…14 Inherent properties of many toxic substances make acquiring the relevant scientific information about them difficult. Carcinogens have long latency periods (the period from exposure to a substance until clinically detectable effects are manifested is from five to forty years), 15 typically operate by obscure causal mechanisms, cause diseases that are typically indistinguishable from naturally occurring diseases, and, except in rare cases, lack unique causal "signatures." 16 Moreover, different toxic substances cause different kinds of harm by different mechanisms; there are few generalizations from one substance to another; for example, compare reproductive toxins or neurotoxins with carcinogens (which sometimes cause harm by initiating the development of a tumor and sometimes by promoting the development of tumors initiated by some other nonhuman cause).…”