Carcinogenic risk assessment of benzene in outdoor air: Developed jointly by the Members of the Committee on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Substances, Health Council of The Netherlands

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Abstract

Based on a working document reviewing benzene toxicity data prepared by the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Hygiene of The Netherlands a committee of the Health Council of The Netherlands prepared a report regarding a health risk assessment of benzene in ambient air. A short review of the available data on the health effects of benzene is presented. Two risk evaluations based on epidemiological studies of humans exposed to benzene are presented and incorporated in the overall risk assessment. Together with these evaluations and the fact that there is no strong evidence for the existence of a stochastic working mechanism of action the committee advised to increase the result of the risk assessment presented by the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Hygiene of The Netherlands by two orders of magnitude.

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    Committee on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Substances. G. M. H. Swaen, Department of Occupational Medicine, University of Limburg, P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands (to whom correspondence should be addressed); A. E. M. de Hollander, Secretary, Health Council of The Netherlands, The Hague, The Netherlands; R. Kroes, Chairman of the Committee, National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Hygiene, Bilthoven, The Netherlands; L. den Engelse, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; V. J. Feron, TNO-CIVO, Toxicology and Nutrition Institute, Zeist, The Netherlands; G. J. Mulder, Department of Toxicology, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands; A. L. M. Verbeek, Department of Epidemiology, University of Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; H. G. Verschuuren, Dow Chemical Europe, Horgen, Switzerland; E. W. Vogel, Department of Radiation Genetics, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands; A. E. van der Wielen, Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Environment, The Hague, The Netherlands.

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