Scientific Association of the European Talc Industry aisbl

The health effects of talc inhalation in humans working with talc in an occupational context have been assessed through a number of epidemiological surveys.

The most important of these tracked mortality rates among the worker population of the largest talc mine and milling plant in the world, in France, over a period of 51 years from January 1945 to December 1996. Similar studies have also been made on talc workers in Austria and Italy.

The most recent of these studies:

• WILD P. and ColI. A cohort mortality and nested case-control study of French and Austrian workers. Occup. Environ. Med 2002; 59; 98-105.
• COGGIOLA M. and Coll. An update of a mortality study of talc miners and millers in Italy, Am. J. Indust. Med. 44, 2003, p 63-69

conclude that there is no excess of lung cancer or excess of any other type of cancer amongst these populations. Similarly, pleural or peritoneal mesotheliomas, known to be related to asbestos mineral exposure, were not found.

Likewise, a review of the epidemiological evidence, conducted in 2006, (Lung cancer risk and talc not containing asbestiform fibres: a review of the epidemiological evidence", by Pascal Wild. Published in Occup. Environ. Med. 2006) similarly concludes that “no increased lung cancer mortality was observed among talc millers despite their high exposure experience. In populations where talc was associated with other potential carcinogens, some lung cancer excesses were observed.”

All this independent research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and EUROTALC members have been commended by the World Health Organisation for their contribution to these studies.

The results above concur with the position of the United States National Toxicology Program which ruled in October 2005 that existing scientific data were insufficient to identify talc as a cancer causing agent. Consequently, talc was withdrawn from review for the 12th Federal Report on Carcinogens (RoC).

Similarly, on February 14, 2006, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) completed its reassessment of the potential carcinogenicity of talc not containing asbestos or asbestiform fibres. After reviewing the epidemiological studies published since IARC’s first evaluation of talc in 1987, the Working Group concluded that there was inadequate evidence for the carcinogenicity to humans of inhaled talc not containing asbestos or asbestiform fibres and agreed to continue with its classification in Group 3. This means that occupational exposure to talc, on which this categorization is based, is not a risk factor for lung cancer or any other cancers of the respiratory system in humans.

< back