Table 2

Summary characteristics of talc exposed populations in other industries

	Cohort definition	Talc exposure	Other	Smoking
Thomas et al, pottery workers^12,¹³	All employees of three US ceramic factories with one year employment 1939–66 followed up from 1955–81	No, non-fibrous, fibrous	Quartz high/low	No information
Zhang et al, rubber workers¹⁴	Employees (male and female) of a Shanghai rubber factory who entered a screening program for heart disease in 1972 followed up from 1972–84	Exposure during curing. No precision as to whether fibrous or not fibrous	Curing agents, condensed volatiles, gases nitrosamines	Available for everybody, controlled in the analysis
Chiazze et al, fibreglass workers¹⁶	Production and maintenance workers employed at least one year in a Ohio fibreglass plant from 1940–62, followed up until 1982	Expressed in estimated f/ml. No precision as to whether fibrous or not fibrous	Asbestos, silica, formaldehyde,	Available for everybody, controlled in the analysis
Straif et al, rubber workers^17,¹⁸	All male employees from five German rubber plants with at least one year employment retired or active in 1981 followed up from 1981–91	Low/medium/high Non-fibrous talc	Asbestos, nitrosamines, carbon black	No information
Langseth and Andersen, paper workers²⁰	All female employees of a pulp and paper mill working at least one year between 1920–93 followed up for cancer incidence from 1953–93	As a constituent of paper dust in the paper departments	Paper dust, sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, chlorine, chlorine dioxide	No information
Bulbulyan et al, printing workers¹⁹	All female employees of two printing plants working at least two year between 1978–93 followed up for cancer incidence from 1979–93	As a constituent of paper dust in the book binding department and among press operators	Paper dust, benzene, solvents, aromatic hydrocarbons, carbon black	No information