IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v2y1982i3p195-204.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Quantitative Estimate of Leukemia Mortality Associated with Occupational Exposure to Benzene

Author

Listed:
  • Mary C. White
  • Peter F. Infante
  • Kenneth C. Chu

Abstract

In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a revised occupational standard for benzene, stating that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had failed to demonstrate that significant health risks existed under the current standard. This decision has been interpreted by OSHA as requiring the consideration of quantitative risk assessments, whenever possible, in the development of regulations for occupational carcinogens. In light of this decision, the available epidemiologic evidence was used to generate a quantitative risk assessment for benzene. Uncertainties regarding the levels and lengths of benzene exposure for the studied cohorts were incorporated into the analysis. Based on the one‐hit model, the assessment indicates that a working lifetime exposure to benzene at the current permissible exposure level (10 ppm) poses a substantial excess risk of death from leukemia. This report discusses the calculation of the risk estimates, the basis for relying on certain assumptions, and the inherent limitations of using epidemiologic studies to quantify cancer risks.

Suggested Citation

  • Mary C. White & Peter F. Infante & Kenneth C. Chu, 1982. "A Quantitative Estimate of Leukemia Mortality Associated with Occupational Exposure to Benzene," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(3), pages 195-204, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:2:y:1982:i:3:p:195-204
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1982.tb01381.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1982.tb01381.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1982.tb01381.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mary B. Paxton & Vernon M. Chinchilli & Susan M. Brett & Joseph V. Rodricks, 1994. "Leukemia Risk Associated with Benzene Exposure in the Pliofilm Cohort. II. Risk Estimates," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(2), pages 155-161, April.
    2. James N. Rowe & Janet A. Springer, 1986. "Asbestos Lung Cancer Risks: Comparison of Animal and Human Extrapolations," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(2), pages 171-180, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:2:y:1982:i:3:p:195-204. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.