I wrote a blog article that has been published by Oxford University Press on their OUPblog site. The publishers asked me to revisit an article I first published in 2009 [1] and reflect on what changes have
occurred since then.

In the blog article I draw attention to the disparity between the number of deaths that occur in Britain through road accidents and the much higher number of deaths from workplace cancer, although the latter has much less public profile and as a consequence very little is done to prevent future deaths.  Nothing much has changed in this respect since the origin paper. However, we now have a much clearer picture of what exposures have caused the cancer burden and this gives an clear opportunity to design effective intervention strategies. If we were just to effectively tackle the problems from asbestos, respirable crystalline silica, diesel engine exhaust and a small number of other agents we could prevent many tens of thousands of deaths in the future. As I say in the blog, “the main issue is that we don’t perceive most of these agents or situations as likely to cause cancer.  For example, airborne dust on construction sites, which often contains crystalline silica and may contain other carcinogenic substances, is considered the norm. Diesel soot is ubiquitous in our cities and we all accept it even though it is categorized as a human carcinogen.” We need to start changing peoples attitudes and get them to take simple steps to control exposures.

At the end of the post I call for “an effective campaign to raise awareness of the problem of workplace cancers and to start to change attitudes to the most pernicious workplace carcinogens.” The time is now!

Read the full blog on the OUPblog site.

Reference

1. Cherrie, J. (2009). Reducing occupational exposure to chemical carcinogens. Occupational Medicine (Oxford, England), 59(2), 96–100. doi:10.1093/occmed/kqn172

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