Report says chromium's lung-cancer risk concealed

WASHINGTON — 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 Thursday.

The allegations, by researchers at George Washington University and the Public Citizen Health Research Group, are based on secret industry documents obtained by the authors. They come just days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is scheduled to announce its new standard for workplace exposure to hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen handled by 380,000 U.S. workers in the steel, aerospace, electroplating and other industries.

Documents in the report, published in the online journal Environmental Health, show that the industry conducted a 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.

OSHA has not said what the new limit will be. But sources close to the agency have been told to expect a standard that would allow five times more exposure than it had initially proposed — a shift that would be a victory for the industry, saving it billions of dollars in upgrades and plant closures.

Company representatives and the contract scientist who led the reworked analysis denied any wrongdoing.

"The idea that there was a conspiracy here ... is completely and utterly false," said Kate McMahon-Lohrer, an attorney for the Chromium Coalition, an industry group.

Scientists have known for decades that inhaled particles of hexavalent chromium, or "chromium VI" — made notorious in the movie "Erin Brockovich" — can cause lung cancer. But exposure limits for workers have not changed since 1943, when the metal dust was considered a mere skin irritant.