A Tattered Safety Net for Workers

For many chemicals, legal exposure limits carry high cancer risks

OSHA’s limits for known or likely human carcinogens almost always fall far short of protections the government seeks to give the general public. That’s according to an analysis by Adam M. Finkel — a former OSHA health regulatory divisions director now at the University of Pennsylvania — and the Center for Public Integrity.

The analysis estimates excess risk over time: If 1,000 workers are exposed to a chemical’s legal limit over their entire careers, how many will likely get cancer as a result? OSHA considers a 1-in-1,000 risk to be “clearly significant.” Below, compare estimated risks at OSHA limits to the risks at often-tighter “Threshold Limit Values” recommended by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, a nonprofit supported in part by industry. The method isn’t exact — no risk calculation is — but it shows how much hazards can vary under the law. (Details about how and where such chemicals are used, meanwhile, are partial rather than comprehensive because such information is limited.) Read about our methodology here.

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