Institute for Environmental Health Sciences

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

Dear RADSAFERs:

The following was sent to me by a colleague:
"Today the Department of Health and Human Services released the Report
on Carcinogens 9th edition. Prepared by the National Toxicology
Program, which is headquartered at the National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, the Report on Carcinogens identifies
substances including metals, pesticides, drugs, and natural and
synthetic chemicals, as well as  mixtures and exposure circumstances
that are Known or are Reasonably Anticipated to cause cancer in
humans, and to which a significant number of Americans are exposed.
The Report is published every two years.

Substances newly listed or reclassified in the Report on Carcinogens
as Known or Reasonably Anticipated Human Carcinogens include:

Alcoholic Beverage Consumption
1,3-Butadiene
Cadmium and Cadmium Compounds
Chloroprene
Diesel Exhaust Particulates
Dyes Metabolized to Benzidine  (Benzidine Dyes as a Class)
Environmental Tobacco Smoke
Ethyl Acrylate  (delisted)
Ethylene Oxide
Isoprene
Methyl-t-Butyl Ether
Phenolphthalein
Saccharin (delisted)
Silica, Crystalline (respirable size)
Smokeless Tobacco
Strong Inorganic Acid Mists Containing Sulfuric Acid
Tamoxifen
Tetrafluoroethylene
Tobacco Smoking
Trichloroethylene
Solar UV Radiation and Exposure to Sunlamps and Sunbeds

The Report on Carcinogens 9th edition is accessible now from the
NIEHS Environmental Health Information Service at:
http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov/ or from the NTP Home Page at
http://ntp-server.niehs.nih.gov/

*****************************************************************
Brought to you by the Environmental Health Information Service [EHIS]
http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov/

Comments and questions regarding this list may be directed to:
listmom@ehpmail.niehs.nih.gov"


 I have not read the report yet, but  my "junk science antennae" went on
full alert: alcoholic beverage consumption? sulfuric acid mist?

Let me just consider these two:  if a person inhales any significant or
noticeable quantity of strong sulfuric acid mist, I can assure you that he
or she is not going to be concerned about latent cancers!  when was the last
time the authors of that list actually worked in a chemistry lab?

Now about "alcoholic beverage consumption" -- if EHIS really thinks this is
a human carcinogen, it is a perfect, unassailable contradiction to the
linear non-threshold theory (and support of the hormesis idea, for that
matter).  Centuries of medical practice and common sense appear to confirm
that low alcoholic beverage consumption is good for you, and certainly
appears to do no harm.   Even recent medical advice says that it helps
prevent heart disease.  Moreover, it has been known for many decades that
high alcohol consumption produces liver disease (which makes a lot of sense,
given the liver's function) and extensive liver disease and liver damage
might well result in liver cancer.  So somewhere in there there must be a
threshold.

There are other things in the list I question.  And if there are conditions
attached to the carcinogenesis of these substances (such as, for example,
what sort of exposure produces cancer) then I believe that simply publishing
a list is significantly misleading.

Ruth F. Weiner, Ph. D.
7336 Lew Wallace NE
Albuquerque, NM
505-856-5011
fax 505-856-5564
ruth_weiner@msn.com
ruth_weiner@ymp.gov



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