Department of Labor Wants to Study Possible Occupation-Cancer Links

WASHINGTON--The US Department of Labor, Occupational Safety andHealth Administration (OSHA) wants more money to study the possibleassociations between occupation and the incidence of cancer.

Testifying before the President's Cancer Panel, Peter Infante,DDS, DrPH, director of OSHA's Office of Standards Review, saidthat OSHA needs the information to set the workplace standardfor permissible levels of certain substances believed to be carcinogens.

Dr. Infante said that 22 agents, proven carcinogenic by the WorldHealth Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer(IARC), are still used in industry. In addition, 42 other industrialcompounds and agents are listed by the IARC as "probable"causes of human cancer on the basis of animal or epidemiologicevidence.