Jan
19, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- British researchers published a study report in
the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine saying that a rubber chemical
may increase risk of cancer in people exposed to the fumes during the
manufacturing of rubber products.
Workers
who were exposed to 2-mercaptobenzothiazole or MBT were found twice as likely
to develop colon cancer and four times as likely to be diagnosed with bone
marrow cancer as the general population, the study showed.
The
longer the exposure was, the higher the risk in the workers who were
occupationally exposed to the chemical.
Early studies have shown that MBT causes cancer in mice. The current
study is believed to the first to establish a link between the exposure to MBT
and increased risk of cancer.
The
study led by Tom Sorahan of the University of Birmingham and colleagues
involved 363 workers exposed to MBT who had worked at a plant for at least six
months between 1955 and 1984 and diagnosed with cancer during the period from
1971 to 2005.
In
the U.S., the National Toxicology Program does not seem to have recognized
the chemical as a human carcinogen.
But
the chemical was found once in a drug leading to regulatory responses by the
FDA.
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