Workplace exposures linked to pancreatic cancer risk for female textile workers in Shanghai

This news article was written for the Advanced Technical Communication in Public Health Course at the University of Washington.

Long-term exposure to solvents increased the risk of pancreatic cancer in a large cohort of female textile works in Shanghai, according to a study published by an international group of researchers in the February 2016 issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Their work is an eight-year follow-up to a smaller 2006 study that found no associations between pancreatic cancer in textile workers and occupational exposures including solvents, metals, lubricants, inks, resins, and pesticides. Researchers utilized a large data set compiled from decades of factory work records and interviews with relatives.  Additionally, the new study could not confirm the 2006 study’s findings of a protective effect from exposure to a bacterial contaminant called endotoxin, commonly found in organic materials like cotton, according to lead author Nicholas Reul, formerly of the University of Washington Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences and currently of the Washington Department of Labor. 

Although the study did not identify any new hazardous associations, their results were concordant with prior literature and knowledge of these exposures according to Reul. He noted that few Americans are faced with the medical consequences of workplace exposures as the number of manufacturing and factory jobs in the US dwindles. “It’s something we don’t notice until something goes wrong,” Reul remarked. He promotes awareness of the need for different protections for workers that are regularly exposed to hazardous substances. “The idea of doing occupational health research,” he explained, is to use the data collected “to drive effective public policy so that we can make informed decisions about how to deal with this as a society.” His sentiments were echoed by Dr. Harvey Checkoway, now a researcher at the University of California San Diego and senior author of the publication. “In factory settings the exposures are typically much, much higher because of the indoor, enclosed environment,” he stated.  Checkoway emphasizes that there must be serious efforts to minimize exposures to workers.

While the results found by Reul and colleagues are consistent with previous assumptions about the effects of exposures to hazardous substances in the textile industry, there is work left to be done. “The results of a single study don’t add up to real risk,” cautions Dr. Noah Seixas, professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences at the University of Washington and an author on the original 2006 study. Seixas urges that not only people should be more aware of health risks at work, but that studies should determine whether risks are distributed among the population or whether there is discrimination based on industry and type of job. 

One area where risk prevention and assessment are still lacking is gender. There is often a disparity between actual exposures and the reported data due to both biological differences and unevenly distributed tasks based on gender. In the textile industry, for example, women are more likely to weave and cart fibers while men are more likely to deal with chemical processes and engineering tasks, meaning estimates of solvent exposure in this study may be problematic. When asked how exposures quantifications are adjusted for gender, Seixas replied, “They’re not. And that may or may not be okay.” 

In a lot of cases, it’s not okay, insists Dr. Melissa Friesen, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and an expert in strategies for minimizing inaccurate workplace exposure estimates. “We almost never have information with which to develop gender-specific estimates of exposure,” she explained. “Studies assume that the risks observed for men also pertain to women and provide no information on women-specific tasks,” Friesen added. Reul concluded that considerations will likely be made for these disparities in the future, noting, “Gender concerns have and will continue to come up in occupational health.”