Dear Cindymary,
Interesting question. It appears that yes, there was a 1990 paper
written by T.D. Sterling, J.J. Weinkam and D. M. Sterling which found
that “women who work at home have a 55% higher risk of dying from
cancer than do women who work outside the home”. Whether this study
is correct or not, I don’t have the ability to confirm. It also
appears that the date is from the early 1970s. There have been other
studies examining the carcinogenic properties of household products,
but I could not find any other, more recent, studies which examined
the effects on homemakers.
From Greenlivingnow.com:
“Research by Dr. David Sterling, conducted in 1991 and based upon the
work of W.E. Morton, suggested that women who work in the home have a
55% higher risk of developing some form of cancer and/or chronic
respiratory disease compared to women who work outside of the home.
Dr. Sterling noted that, ‘like all occupations, housework has its
hazards…Perhaps the most serious exposure is to modern household
cleaners which may contain a number of (both) proven and suspect
causes of cancer. The excess prevalence of cancers among homemakers
relative to employed women may be due to (these) occupational
exposures of homemaking’”
Source:
http://www.greenlivingnow.com/Are%20Your%20Household%20Products%20Safe.doc
The conference you mentioned hearing about this statistic is probably
where the following document was presented:
Exposure of Homemakers to Toxic Contaminants: I. Differences in
Chronic Conditions Between Homemakers and Employed Persons.
Proceedinqs, 5th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and
Climate, July 1990, Toronto, Ontario. (in print)
Source:
http://tobaccodocuments.org/pm/2501070550-0574.html
Unfortunately I was not able to find this document, nor was I able to
find these two articles, also related to the relevant study (I believe
you would need a journal subscription to access them):
T. D. Sterling, J. J. Weinkam, and D. M. Sterling. "Relative cancer
risk of homemakers". In Proc. Interface'91, April 21-24, 1991
T. D. Sterling and J. J. Weinkam. "Differences in chronic conditions
between homemakers and otherwise employed women". In Proc. 1991 Public
Health Conference on Records and Statistics, July 15-17 1991.
Source:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~jjw/publications.html
I was, however, able to find a draft of a paper entitled “Comparison
of Risk of Chronic Conditions and Cancer Between Homemakers and
Otherwise Employed Women” from July 1990. You can read this paper
here (scroll down to near the bottom of the HTML document):
http://tobaccodocuments.org/lor/87656461-6476.html
It is interesting to note that much of the data from this study was
from W.E. Morton’s work from 1970 to 1974. It therefore may be quite
of date. Also, the 55% figure refers to white homemakers, while black
homemakers had a 59% excess risk of developing cancer than employment
woman. The study also makes a point of saying that they do not
believe that smoking is the cause for this variance and that toxic
household cleaning products is a “plausible” explanation.
Again, while it appears that your statement is correct, it seems like
it is quite outdated – cleaning products have probably change
dramatically since the early 1970s. However, I did find a few sites
discussing the potential dangers of household cleaning products,
including an entire program set up by the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Environmental Protect Agency - Cleaning Products Pilot Project
http://www.epa.gov/oppt/epp/pubs/cleaner.pdf
Earthwellness – Health and Safety
http://www.earthwellness.com/techtalk/health.htm
“The 10 Most Dangerous Toxins in Your Household” by Claude Morgan
Green Living Ecohom – Emagazine
http://www.emagazine.com/september-october_1998/0998gl_ecohome.html
Hope that answers your question!
---------------------------
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