New Investigation: This Household Chemical “Causes More Cancer Than Any Other”
December 10, 2024 | Source: The Healthy | by Lauren Gray
Many of us first encountered it in high school biology class, but experts say it lurks in our homes too. Here’s where, as a not-for-profit report reveals its consequences.
In an increasingly industrialized world, hazardous chemicals are all around us. Many of them, including within the home, have been found to cause cancer; but researchers are finding that some household toxins are riskier than others. A December 2024 report by the nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica has concluded that one widely used chemical “causes more cancer than any other.”
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Review of EPA’s 2022 Draft Formaldehyde Assessment says several health authorities, including the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Toxicology Program, have come to “unequivocal independent conclusions” that formaldehyde—a colorless, flammable gas with a strong odor and a range of applications—is carcinogenic to humans. “The evidence demonstrates that formaldehyde inhalation causes cancer in humans and identifies nasopharyngeal and sinonasal cancers, as well as myeloid leukemia” as the cancer types most closely linked with the chemical, the review committee wrote. (The Cleveland Clinic explains that these types of cancer may affect the nose, sinuses, neck, throat, or other sites within the body’s uppermost region.)
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has calculated that formaldehyde exposure within the home could cause 255 cancer cases per million people exposed to the chemical over their lifetimes. This excludes the risk of myeloid leukemia, which the EPA ultimately decided was “too uncertain” to include in official estimates, ProPublica states.