SEATTLELong-term, high-level exposure to bacterial endotoxins in
raw cotton fiber and cotton dust was associated with a 40%
decrease in lung cancer risk among female Chinese textile
workers. The risk of developing lung cancer decreased for
workers exposed to greater amounts of endotoxins over many
years. The new research, conducted by George Astrakianakis, PhD,
of the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare,
Vancouver, BC, and the University of Washington, Seattle, and
his colleagues, involved 267,000 female textile workers in
Shanghai. The researchers compared the cumulative exposure
histories of 628 patients diagnosed with incident lung cancer
from 1989 through 1998, with the experiences of a lung-cancer-
free reference subcohort of 3,184 workers who were matched by
5-year age groups to the cancer patients. They found that 20
years of exposure to endotoxins reduced the incidence of lung
cancer to approximately 7.6 per 100,000 women, compared with
19.1 per 100,000 for the average Shanghai woman.