Carcinogens In The Human Environment

Our plain-English summary of Carcinogens In The Human Environment, by W.C. Hueper (1961).

The study

• Author: W.C. Hueper
• Published: Archives Of Pathology 71(3):237-267, March And 71(4):355-380, April (1961)
• Type of article: Journal article
• Our copy: from Johns-Manville's own medical library, J-M no. 002521. The article is still under copyright, so we describe it here rather than post it.

In plain English

This is the author's review of published evidence on possible cancer-causing agents in consumer goods and the general environment. The text supplied is only the April 1961 second part. It surveyed food additives and contaminants: food dyes, emulsifiers, sweeteners, preservatives, paraffin waxes, pesticide residues such as arsenicals and chlorinated hydrocarbons, estrogens given to food animals, water pollutants, plastic wrapping materials, and soot and smoke on roasted or smoked foods. Most of the evidence it cited came from other researchers' animal experiments. Among the reports it described were bladder stones in 25 of 150 rats fed polyoxyethylene (8) stearate, with bladder tumors in 13 of them. It also described Burrell's finding that esophageal cancer was more than 6 times as frequent among Bantus as among Europeans in one South African area. Asbestos appeared only in passing. It was listed among industrial effluents that may reach water, and the author cited "asbestosis cancers of the lung" as showing that the human body can react to a silicon polymer with cancer. The author concluded that adding new industry-related carcinogens to the environment should be prevented as much as practicable.

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: Review: the author's narrative survey of published human, animal and chemical-analysis studies (second part of a two-part article)
• Who was studied: No study population of its own. The review concerns cancer hazards to the general population from consumer goods and environmental pollutants, drawing on studies by other researchers.
• Exposure: Food additives and contaminants (dyes, emulsifiers, sweeteners, surfactants, humectants, preservatives, paraffins and waxes), pesticide residues (arsenicals, chlorinated hydrocarbons, carbamates), plant growth regulators, estrogens used in fattening food animals, water and soil pollutants, plastic wrapping and coating materials, and soot and smoke products in roasted and smoked foods. Asbestos is mentioned only as one of several carcinogenic materials in industrial atmospheric effluents.
• Main results:
  • Reported from Fitzhugh, Bourke, Nelson and Frawley: polyoxyethylene (8) stearate fed to rats at a 25% level in the diet produced bladder stones in 25 out of 150 rats, and bladder tumors in 13 of them (9 papillomas and 4 carcinomas).
  • Reported from Jardetzky et al.: hepatomas occurred in 40% of mice fed a commonly used shortening and in 65% of mice given a specific solvent fraction of it.
  • Reported from Burrell: in a South African area, esophageal cancer was more than 6 times as frequent among the local Bantus as among the Europeans. Burrell traced this to liquor fermented in drums still lined with petroleum asphalt.
  • Reported from Voitelovich et al.: people of 2 coastal Latvian fishing villages who ate large amounts of fresh, salted and smoked fish had about 3 times as much cancer of the alimentary and respiratory tract as people of 6 inland farming villages.
  • Reported from Kuratsune and Hueper: 3,4-benzpyrene was not demonstrable in watery extracts of light or dark roasted coffee beans. Very small amounts were present in a special brand of black roasted coffee with burnt bean surfaces.
  • Reported from Conway and Lethco: some beta-naphthylamine used to make the food dyes Yellow AB and Yellow OB remained unreacted and appeared as an impurity in certified lots.
  • Asbestos is listed among the carcinogenic materials in industrial atmospheric effluents that may be washed into bodies of water.
  • In discussing plastics, the author cited the existence of asbestosis cancers of the lung as showing that the human organism may react to a silicon polymer with cancer in the exposed tissue. No asbestos data are presented.
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that growing pollution of the human environment with industry-related carcinogens poses serious problems, and that efforts should be made to prevent, as much as possible and practicable, any further addition of new carcinogens. The author also held that environmental cancers are as amenable to sanitary control as communicable diseases, and rejected the argument for accepting small 'calculated risks'.
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that the evidence that some food dyes are human carcinogens under dietary exposure is still circumstantial, being derived from workers who produced such dyes.
  • The author stated that the practical importance of the coffee-soot findings remained uncertain because of conflicting experimental evidence, and that it is not definitely established that 3,4-benzpyrene is carcinogenic to man.
  • The author described as purely speculative the idea that differences in gastric cancer mortality between and within countries are partly related to local dietary factors.

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Esophageal Cancer, Bantu.

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