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About 186,000 French workers are exposed to mutagens (chemicals that produce genetic changes) and a further 180,000 are exposed to reprotoxins (toxic for reproduction), reports a survey by the French Employment Ministry's department for the development of research, studies and statistics (DARES).
The mutagens that workers are most often exposed to are chromium and its derivatives (58% of cases) and benzene (25%), reveals the recently published study. Workers in production and maintenance jobs are most exposed (2.7% of these), followed by workers in research, design, methods and computing posts. The metallurgy and metal working industry is the heaviest user. Using "exposure scores" based on exposure rates and times, DARES concludes that "half the exposed workers seem to know how to handle the products properly".
Nearly half the 180,000 workers exposed to reprotoxins (1% of all French workers) work in industry, 18% in services to business and 15% in the building industry. Men are three times more often exposed than women, and account for 80% of all exposed workers. The reprotoxins that French workers are most frequently exposed to (66% of cases) are lead and its derivatives. Around 60% of exposures are point exposures - less than two hours a week -, but 13% top 20 hours a week. While products seem to be "properly handled" in 57% of cases, "in one in three cases" workers are totally unprotected against the risk, points out the DARES study.
Production and maintenance jobs carry the greatest exposure (2.5%), followed by research posts (1.8%). The overwhelming majority of those affected are manual workers (63%) and technician and skilled craft occupations (30%). This was a workplace survey done between June 2002 and the end of 2003, of a sample of nearly 50,000 French workers and around 1,800 occupational doctors.
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