WORKSHOP MMF: ASSESSMENT OF TOXICITY OF MAN-MADE FIBRES, PARIS, FRANCE, 3-4 FEBRUARY 1994

摘要

Research on the health effects of naturally occurring and synthetic fibres has shown that fibres with certain physico-chemical characteristics have the potential to induce lung fibrosis and lung, pleural and peritoneal tumours. As these diseses do not appear until 40 or more years after first exposure, efforts have been directed at development methods to identify and control the release of these 'dangerous' fibres before they are introduced in the market. Regulators have been led by the scientific community to believe that it is possible simply to classify fibres as 'carcinogens' or 'non-carcinogens'. This approach has become popular with regulators as a particular fibre can be labelled as a 'carcinogen' and the controls considered appropriate in a particular jurisdiction introduced. Unfortunately, different jurisdictions have used different criteria and the 'test' systems on which decisions have been proposed have not been standardized, or in some cases, have not received international scientific acceptance. This has become of increasing concern to the scientific community and, over the past 4 years, there have been around 10 international meetings on man-made fibres (MMFs), most focusing on aspects of this problem.