OSHA Ordered to Review Formaldehyde Cancer Risk

A federal appeals court Friday ordered the Labor Department to reconsider the cancer risk from exposure to formaldehyde and its decision not to guarantee full wages to workers disabled by the gas.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington said the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration “has failed adequately to explain” its finding that the risk of getting cancer from exposure to formaldehyde was not significant if employers complied with OSHA’s exposure limits.

The three-judge panel also concluded that OSHA offered a “feeble” explanation of its decision not to include in its standard for formaldehyde exposure provisions guaranteeing that workers will be paid full wages and retain seniority rights during rehabilitation from any illness linked to the substance.

Annual Exams Not Required

The court, ruling in a suit filed by three unions, upheld OSHA’s decision not to require employers to provide annual medical examinations to workers exposed to formaldehyde, a colorless gas that, when mixed with other materials, has a number of applications in industry and is found in many construction and consumer products.

Also upheld was the OSHA-set exposure “action level” at which employers are required to provide workers with training, protective clothing and other protective measures. The unions failed to show that lowering that level would significantly enhance worker safety, the court said.

An OSHA spokesman said agency officials had not reviewed the decision and had no immediate comment.

OSHA, revising a 1972 standard, in 1987 set a maximum permissible exposure level of 1 part per million of formaldehyde during an eight-hour workday and set the action level at 0.5 p.p.m.

The United Auto Workers, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers and the International Molders and Allied Workers unions challenged the standard, saying OSHA should have set a far more stringent exposure limit.

The court, in remanding to the Labor Department the question of cancer risk, questioned the formula used by the department to extrapolate the cancer risk to humans from the risk found in animal studies.