Mortality among rubber workers: IX. Curing workers.

This research examined mortality among 1,152 white male production workers employed in the tire-curing department of a large rubber manufacturing plant. To determine whether these men had any cause-specific mortality excesses, their experience was compared with that of both the U.S. white male general population and a group of production workers at the same plant who had not worked in the curing division. Both types of comparisons indicated that the curing workers experienced excess mortality from lung cancer. There were 45 deaths from lung cancer among curing workers compared to 24.6 expected based on the age- and calendar period-specific rates of other rubber workers. In addition, the mortality rate ratio for pneumonia was 2.2 for curing relative to noncuring workers. These findings are consistent with the results of other studies and suggest that occupational exposures may have contributed to the development of pulmonary disease among curing workers.