Low levels of benzene damage health

[Dover]

Low levels of benzene damage health

Michael Hopkin
Chemical destroys blood cells, even below legal limit.
Even low levels of benzene may place factory workers at risk.


A study of Chinese factory workers has shown that exposure to the chemical benzene destroys several types of blood cell. The effects are seen even at levels below the current US legal exposure limit of 1 part per million.

Benzene, which is used as an industrial solvent but also found in cigarette smoke and vehicle exhausts, has long been linked to the blood disease leukaemia. This study shows that even low levels of the chemical can damage the blood system.

The study was carried out by Martin Smith of the University of California, Berkeley, along with colleagues based in the United States and at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing. They spent 16 months tracking 250 workers in a shoe factory near Tianjin who had varying exposures to benzene. They compared their blood-cell counts with those of workers from a nearby clothes factory, where no benzene was used.

Workers exposed to benzene showed reduced counts of white blood cells and platelets, the researchers report in this week's Science1. "It will be important to examine the long-term health effects in workers exposed to low levels of benzene, such as increased occurrences of serious diseases of the blood system including leukaemia," add the researchers...cont'd

http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041129//full/041129-9.html

[JimmyJazz]

1. Benzene is also present in strawberries and

homes that have attached garages have higher levels of benzene than those who don't. I'm glad that you pointed out that cigarettes contain benzene - my unlce has leukemia and I am convinced it was from years of cigarette smoking - one more reason to quit!

[MsAnthropy]

2. My dad died of leukemia in 1982

and he had used benzene as an aircraft mechanic.

[JimmyJazz]

3. What kind of leukemia did he have? Do you know?

[MsAnthropy]

5. I don't remember--nasty stuff, though. He was gone in 5 months.

[JimmyJazz]

6. I was asking because some types are easily identifiable as

being caused by benzene exposure. I know your father has been gone for a while now, but I am sorry for your loss. It is terrible when someone loses their life by what they do for a living. I lost my grandfather to black lung, so I sort of understand.

[MsAnthropy]

7. I wish someone in the family would have sued Northwest

but no one was thinking clearly at the time. They also screwed my mother out of his 45 years of pension because they claimed he filled out a form incorrectly. Boy do I hate that company.

[sam sarrha]

4. Moth Balls... ParaDiCloro Benzine avoid them

[slutticus]

8. No Shit.

Benzene fits perfectly in between the bases in your DNA.

It only takes one.

I work with mutagens all the time. I wear gloves and a labcoat...but it still worries me.