Even Benzene Exposure Levels Lower Than the 1 ppm Current Limit Cause Leukemia, NHL, Multiple Myeloma, Other Cancers
Over the past several decades, numerous medical studies have shown that unsafe benzene exposure levels increase the risk of multiple cancers.
Benzene exposure has long been associated with various types of leukemias:
- acute myeloid leukemia (AML)
- chronic myeloid leukemia (CML);
- chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); and,
- acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL).
In addition, studies have linked unsafe benzene exposure levels to an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Also, there is further evidence linking benzene to the development of multiple myeloma.
Meanwhile, industry representatives continue to insist that benzene exposure only causes a limited set of cancers like acute myeloid leukemia (AML), myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), and aplastic anemia. And, further, these industry representatives contend only benzene exposure levels that are considered to be “high doses” by their standards.
However, the more that benzene exposure is studied by safety experts, the more dangerous and unsafe it looks — even when it is below the current 1 part per million (ppm) occupational benzene exposure levels limit for US workers has been in effect for more than 35 years.
For example, the September 2022 edition of BMJ medical journal Occupational & Environmental Medicine included this article, “Benzene exposure and risk of benzene poisoning in Chinese workers“, which reported that a 2022 update of the National Cancer Institute’s original China study found a “clear association” between low-level benzene exposures and benzene poisoning, which “has been linked to a strongly increased development of lymphohematopoietic malignancies” — cancers that include lymphomas and leukemias.
If you are interested in learning more about how benzene exposure levels allowed by the US Government are considered too high — much too high according to occupational safety experts — we point out a new report about benzene exposure and its serious health consequences.
In December 2023, Public Health Watch published “The Science on Benzene Keeps Getting Scarier. Industry Remains in Denial.“, written by reporter Jim Morris, the founder of Public Health Watch, who has been an investigative journalist since 1978.
Using this recent Public Health Watch investigation about benzene exposure in the US, we have put together some excerpts from that report to provide you with an overview of permissible benzene exposure levels in the US from the late 1970s to the present. Instead of presenting a strict timeline, we have arranged these four excerpts in an order intended to put some of the significant developments over time into context.
(1) Benzene Exposure Limit Should Be Lower Than the Current 1 ppm, According to Safety Experts
An influential advisory group, the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, now recommends that the eight-hour workplace exposure limit for benzene be set at 0.02 ppm — 50 times stricter than what’s permissible in the United States today. The European Chemicals Agency recommends an occupational benzene limit of 0.05 ppm, 20 times stricter than what OSHA allows.
But OSHA seems unlikely to act.
“OSHA has no plans to update the benzene standard at this time but will continue to monitor scientific developments regarding the health effects of benzene and determine what the Agency can do to best protect employees,” a spokeswoman said in a written statement to Public Health Watch.
(2) Going Back to When US OSHA Tried First to Address Serious Health Dangers of Benzene Exposure
In the spring of 1977, federal workplace-safety regulators were confronted with a grim government study. Current and former employees of two Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. plants in Ohio had been using benzene, a chemical long suspected of causing leukemia, to make a rubberized food wrap called Pliofilm. Workers who had been exposed to benzene in concentrations once considered safe had a five- to 10-times higher risk of developing leukemia than the general public, the study found.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, concluded that the legal limit at the time — 10 parts per million, or 10 ppm, over an eight-hour workday — was far too lenient. Led by Eula Bingham, a plain-spoken Kentuckian appointed by Jimmy Carter, the agency issued an emergency temporary standard that limited exposure to 1 ppm.
… The American Petroleum Institute, or API, challenged Bingham’s temporary benzene standard so quickly in 1977 that it never took effect. When OSHA proposed making 1 ppm the permanent workplace limit a year later, the trade group bottled up the rule in court for nearly a decade.
(3) Current 1 ppm Benzene Exposure Limit Was Considered Too High by Experts as Early as 1986
The API’s challenge of the 1978 OSHA benzene standard made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 5-to-4 decision, the court held in 1980 that OSHA hadn’t justified tightening the exposure limit from 10 ppm to 1 ppm.
OSHA started over and reissued the standard in 1987. But by then OSHA knew its new rule was flawed.
A year earlier, NIOSH had recommended that the workplace limit be set at 0.1 ppm, or 10 times lower than the new standard. OSHA’s own risk assessment showed that the 1-ppm limit would likely result in 10 excess leukemia deaths per 1,000 workers — a number 10 times higher than OSHA’s usual target of one excess death per thousand.
The agency’s concerns also extended to other blood cancers. “Epidemiologic studies of workers exposed to benzene have demonstrated significant excesses of leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphatic cancers as well as chromosomal aberrations,” the 1987 rule stated.
(4) Nonetheless, Benzene Exposure Levels Allowed by the US for Our Workers Remain Too High Now
The occupational exposure limit for benzene remains 1 ppm [today].
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General Background Information
- Exposure to Benzene
- Benzene-Related Diseases
- Workers Exposed to Benzene
- Benzene Exposure in Industries
- Benzene Exposure Levels
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- Frequently Asked Questions
- Benzene Cancer Resources
North Carolina Information
- How to File a North Carolina Benzene Workers Comp Claim
- The Filing Deadline for NC Benzene Workers Comp Claims