Industry withheld data on chromium risk to workers, study asserts

WASHINGTON -- Worried about stricter regulations, the chromium industry withheld key data from the government involving the health risks of workers exposed to the carcinogenic metal, according to a study released yesterday.

The paper by George Washington University and Public Citizen, published in Environmental Health, found the industry submitted incomplete data last year on the links between hexavalent chromium and lung cancer.

Hexavalent chromium, the chemical featured in the 2000 movie ''Erin Brockovich," is used in chrome plating, stainless steel welding, and the production of chromate pigments and dyes. Approximately 380,000 welders, steelworkers, and jewelers are exposed to it on the job.

The study was released a week before the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration was scheduled, by court order, to issue a new standard on acceptable workplace levels of chromium. A federal appeals court set the Feb. 28 deadline after Public Citizen sued over delays in issuing a rule.

OSHA said it was working hard ''to produce a final rule that complies with the court's order." A spokeswoman, Sharon Worthy, declined additional comment.

Kate McMahon, an attorney representing the trade group Chrome Coalition, called charges that the industry was scheming to manipulate data ''completely unfounded and wrong."

She said the industry told OSHA in 1998 that it was planning a four-site study -- two in the United States and two in Germany. It then got overlooked after the bankruptcy of the chromium industry-funded group coordinating the research, the Industrial Health Foundation. The German portion of the study was not submitted to OSHA because it has yet to be published by a peer-edited journal, McMahon said.

According to the paper, in 1997 industry groups commissioned the study on chromium's risks in anticipation of an OSHA move to further restrict workplace levels of the metal. But once the study was completed in 2002, the paper said, industry groups gave OSHA selected data suggesting that only the highest -- and not intermediate -- exposure of chromium led to a significantly higher risk of lung cancer death.