Marsh, Gary M., Morfeld, Peter, Collins, James J. and Symons, James Morel (2014). Issues of methods and interpretation in the National Cancer Institute formaldehyde cohort study COMMENT. J. Occup. Med. Toxicol., 9. LONDON: BMC. ISSN 1745-6673

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Abstract

In 2004, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reclassified formaldehyde (FA) from a probable (Group 2A) to a known human carcinogen (Group 1) citing results for nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) mortality from the follow-up through 1994 of the National Cancer Institute formaldehyde cohort study. To the contrary, in 2012, the Committee for Risk Assessment of the European Chemicals Agency disagreed with the proposal to classify FA as a known human carcinogen (Carc. 1A), proposing a lower but still protective category, namely as a substance which is presumed to have carcinogenic potential for humans (Carc. 1B). Thus, U.S. and European regulatory agencies currently disagree about the potential human carcinogenicity of FA. In 2013, the National Cancer Institute reported results from their follow-up through 2004 of the formaldehyde cohort and concluded that the results continue to suggest a link between FA exposure and NPC. We discuss in this commentary why we believe that this interpretation is neither consistent with the available data from the most recent update of the National Cancer Institute cohort study nor with other research findings from that cohort, other large cohort studies and the series of publications by some of the current authors, including an independent study of one of the National Cancer Institute's study plants. Another serious concern relates to the incorrectness of the data from the follow-up through 1994 of the National Cancer Institute study stemming from incomplete mortality ascertainment. While these data were corrected by the National Cancer Institute in subsequent supplemental publications, incorrect data from the original publications have been cited extensively in recent causal evaluations of FA, including IARC. We conclude that the NCI publications that contain incorrect data from the incomplete 1994 mortality follow-up should be retracted entirely or corrected via published errata in the corresponding journals, and efforts should be made to re-analyze data from the 2004 follow-up of the NCI cohort study.

Item Type: Journal Article
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCIDORCID Put Code
Marsh, Gary M.UNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Morfeld, PeterUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Collins, James J.UNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
Symons, James MorelUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIEDUNSPECIFIED
URN: urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-438262
DOI: 10.1186/1745-6673-9-22
Journal or Publication Title: J. Occup. Med. Toxicol.
Volume: 9
Date: 2014
Publisher: BMC
Place of Publication: LONDON
ISSN: 1745-6673
Language: English
Faculty: Unspecified
Divisions: Unspecified
Subjects: no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:
KeywordsLanguage
PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING SCIENCE; NASOPHARYNGEAL CANCER; LYMPHOHEMATOPOIETIC MALIGNANCIES; EPIDEMIOLOGIC ENTERPRISE; OCCUPATIONAL-EXPOSURE; SOLID TUMORS; FOLLOW-UP; MORTALITY; WORKERS; RISKMultiple languages
Public, Environmental & Occupational HealthMultiple languages
URI: http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/43826

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