OSHA’s Carcinogens Standard: Round One on Risk Assessment Models and Assumptions

Abstract

This chapter uses the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) efforts in the late 1970s to adopt a generic way to regulate suspected workplace carcinogens as a vehicle for examining the role of values in cancer risk assessment. OSHA's attempt (a final standard was never implemented) to promulgate uniform guidelines for assessing cancer grew out of a frustration with arguing the same rules of evidence for each suspected carcinogen. This case-by-case approach resulted in the adoption of only 19 carcinogen standards, including 14 which had been regulated as a group shortly after the creation of OSHA in 1970.KeywordsRisk AssessmentRisk Assessment ModelCancer Risk AssessmentHazard IdentificationConsumer Product Safety CommissionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.