Carcinogens in the environment

Our plain-English summary of Carcinogens in the environment, by P.N. Magee (Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1974).

The study

• Author: P.N. Magee
• Journal: Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine
• Published: 1974;67(8):741-3
• Cited by: 2 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher · Free full text
• In J-M's library: Johns-Manville's company medical library held a copy (J-M no. 004822).

In plain English

This 1974 article by P N Magee was a short commentary in the Section of Oncology of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine about agents in the environment that can cause cancer. It reported no new research of its own. Asbestos appeared only once, as one entry in a 1971 list of recognized human carcinogens drawn up by Hueper, alongside arsenic, chromium, nickel, benzene and others. The author cited a 1969 suggestion by Boyland that no more than 10% of human tumours are caused by radiation or viruses. Recent examples described included 19 cases of angiosarcoma of the liver in workers making polyvinyl chloride, reported by Lee and Harry in 1974. The author noted that standard animal tests often took more than three years and were very expensive, and that little was known about cancer risk at very low doses. The author concluded that removing known or potential carcinogens from the environment could greatly decrease human cancer, and called for better testing methods.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Commentary or narrative overview of environmental carcinogens, drawing on other researchers' published work; no original data
• Who was studied: No study population; general discussion of human and animal carcinogens
• Exposure: Environmental chemical carcinogens in general (also radiation and viruses); asbestos mentioned only as one item in Hueper's 1971 list of recognized human carcinogens
• Main results:
  • The author cited Hueper's 1971 list of recognized human carcinogens, which included asbestos, arsenic, chromium, nickel, benzene and some aromatic amines, among others
  • The author cited Boyland's 1969 suggestion that not more than 10% of human tumours are caused by radiation or viruses, leaving about 90% attributable to chemicals
  • The author cited a 1974 report by Lee and Harry of 19 cases of angiosarcoma of the liver in workers manufacturing polyvinyl chloride
  • The author stated that conventional carcinogenicity tests in animals often take more than three years and are very expensive
  • The author stated that little information was available on the dose-response curve for chemical carcinogens at very low environmental levels
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that removing or eliminating the many known or potential human carcinogens from the environment could greatly decrease human cancer, and that this would require improved carcinogenicity testing methods

Related studies

• Review of occupational lung carcinogens — K. Steenland, D. Loomis, et al. (1996)
• Asbestos and metals as carcinogens — T. Norseth (1980)
• SYN-JEM: A Quantitative Job-Exposure Matrix for Five Lung Carcinogens — S. Peters, R. Vermeulen, et al. (2016)
• Development of an exposure measurement database on five lung carcinogens (ExpoSYN) for quantitative retrospective occupational exposure assessment — S. Peters, R. Vermeulen, et al. (2012)
• Nongenotoxic carcinogens in the regulatory environment — B.E. Butterworth (1989)
• Practical steps towards the prevention of bronchial carcinoma — R. Doll (1970)

Browse more research in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, or return to medical research.