Chromium conspiracy?

Hexavalent chromium is hitting the news again.

Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal's health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday.

Documents in the report, published in the peer-reviewed online journal Environmental Health, show that the industry conducted a pivotal study that found a fivefold increase in lung cancer deaths from moderate exposures to chromium but never published the results or gave them to OSHA. Company-sponsored scientists later reworked the data in a way that made the risk disappear.

As described, this sounds bad. However, recall the article stating that half of all published reports are actually wrong – either reporting a significant effect that doesn't exist, or finding no link where there is one. Maybe, with this in mind, it's entirely reasonable to look at data very carefully before releasing it.

As it stands, the effect of the proposed limit of one microgram per cubic meter of air will result in an estimated two to nine excess deaths per thousand workers due to lung cancer. OSHA usually aims at one excess death, but in this case decided the cost of attaining that limit was excessive. Even the one microgram limit is looking pretty expensive – 5 billion dollars industry-wide.

In a somewhat hysterical post, Main St. USA notes that 380,000 US workers are exposed to hexavalent chromium annually. If we assume all 380,000 are exposed to this metal over a 45-year working lifetime (the criterion OSHA uses in its calculation), every excess death per 1000 workers represents 380 excess deaths among this workforce. There are a lot of numbers missing from the Washington Post article, but this number may give us a shot at some perspective.

One microgram is expected to cause between two and nine excess deaths, and a five microgram limit, 10 to 45 excess deaths. Based on this, the current "maximum exposure level" of 52 micrograms per liter should yield between 104 and 468 excess deaths from lung cancer per 1000 workers. Are we seeing a 10-47% death rate from lung cancer in elecroplating workers?

The one microgram standard is expected to cost the industry 5 billion dollars per year. I don't know how many statistical lives this standard is expected to change, but let's use 50 per thousand as a starting point. Fifty per thousand, times 380 thousands, gives us 7600 lives saved. Divided into five billion dollars gives us an annual price tag of $658 thousand per life saved.

Furthermore, this standard is applied over the entire 45-year working life of each worker, so really, that price tag needs to be multiplied by the 45 years the worker is exposed to it. That's $29.6 million per life saved, and even if we simply multiply it over the entire industry – basically assuming every worker has a cancer prevented – that's a little over $1.2 million per worker.

The question that always has to be weighed is, given the cost per life saved, is this really the most effective use of our lifesaving dollars?