Tulane Wood Dust Study - "wood dust is bad for you" is a lie?

[Wilbur Pan]

Before we get all warm and fuzzy about private/industry sources for medical research funding, we need to be aware that if a study is funded with industry money, the sponsors of the study can and do squash studies that are not favorable to the sponsor. The recent issues with antidepressants and an increased risk of teen suicide is one of the most recently publicized examples of this, but this goes on all the time.

I'm a pediatric oncologist that works in academics, and our division is frequently approached by industry to do clinical research sponsored by private funds, so we see a lot of this. Industry always reserves the right to do what they want with the dat, including refusing to submit it for publication. I don't know of a single physician worth their weight in salt that doesn't automatically see industry sponsorship and think, "potentially compromised data".

This is not to deny that private funding sources aren't important. But if funding comes from the public sector, I have more faith in the data.

[Wilbur Pan]

One other issue with the Tulane wood dust study: I can't find the actual study anywhere. There's an article in the Tulane University Magazine referencing the study and the lead author, Henry Glindmeyer, but doing a search on Pubmed (a database of all articles relating to biomedical research) for "Glindmeyer" doesn't return an article describing these findings, which leads me to believe that the Tulane wood dust study is, at the very least, not peer-reviewed. There's an "executive summary" of the paper that I found, and mention of a presentation of this data in 2002 at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Exposition, and lots of press releases, but no published paper that I can find, at least.

To see a list of these papers, go to www.pubmed.gov, and search for "Glindmeyer".

Interestingly, reading the abstracts of the other studies that he is an author on shows that he does link respiratory disease with exposure to spray painting, cotton dust, coffee bean processing, and sandblasting, and in many of these cases says that current standards and practices are inadequate to protect workers in these industries.

[Wilbur Pan]

2) Almost all research of any type is privately funded by the institutions that are affected by the results.

This is factually wrong. Here's a graph of funding trends in biomedical research from 1993-2002.



This data is from the FDA. Although pharmaceutical spending outpaces the NIH budget, public funds still makes up a significant part of biomedical research funding.

[Roger Warford]

This is a great thread, as are all of the numerous threads on DC. I particularly appreciate Art's comments (and love your show on HDNet as well! ).

I think any reasonable person would agree that on-going exposure to wood dust cannot possibly be a good thing and that we all owe it to ourselves and our families to take steps to keep ourselves healthy. I, however, have limited means (as I suspect most of us do) and therefore must split my precious few resources (time and money) amongst many competing needs. I am just setting up shop and am including DC as a central component. But I also spent a little extra on a TS to get a riving knife which I perceive as a significant safety feature. Spending more on the TS meant spending just a little less on DC (I went with a single stage rather than a cyclone). As for the TS, I could have gone the next step up and purchased a SawStop that adds even more safety, but then I wouldn't have had enough left to purchase my DC.

Likewise I have to divide up the precious little time I have. I've read volumes from SMC, Bill Pentz's site, and as many other sources as I could find on DC. And it has all been valuable. But I've also spent time reading up on TS safety and other topics. And have actually saved a few minutes to make some of that deadly saw dust!

I enjoy obsessing over every aspect of my hobbies, but when push comes to shove we all have to make trade-offs. I encourage those of you who, like me, are new to WW and the Creek to educate yourselves on this and a few other important topics, do what you can to protect yourself, but make your own judgement calls based on your own working habits, plans, goals, and means.

And, most importanly, have fun and share your experiences!

One last note, as I have mentioned I am new to the Creek so please go easy on me! I hope I won't regret this post!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Welcome to the Creek Roger....


Break out the whips and chains folks......Roger assume the position

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Roger,

I joined the Creek 4 years ago when I first started building a workshop. I didn't even know DC existed. I just finished this weekend the final tiny installation details to my new 3hp central DC. I attached it to my new b/s and was starting install the first blade on the b/s but got called to work yesterday.

That's one of the things I like about the Creek......You can learn a lot.

[Dennis Peacock]

Yup...an old thread but the content is very good.

[Prashun Patel]

If you have enough $ to spend on stationary power tools, then you have enough $$ to spend on dc. If there's even a shred of doubt, why take a chance?

Try working without DC for a few weeks and pay careful attention to the quality of your breathing. I notice it.

What a small price to pay.

Shoot, while yr at it, throw away yr blade guards and splitters and toss that eye protection.

[Roger Warford]

...Break out the whips and chains folks......Roger assume the position

Yikes!

...That's one of the things I like about the Creek......You can learn a lot.

Whew, thanks for following up - I was running scared after the first message!

And I'm amazed by all that I've been able to learn here. I've been so impressed I've taken the unprecendented step of making a contribution. As a software developer by day I spend a significant portion of my day searching the Web for information on one topic or another. I've NEVER payed for an open forum before - and almost never participated in any.

The information here, though, is so good, and everyone is so willing to help, that I made a small donation to the creek. For anyone who hasn't noticed, there's a DONATE button near the top right of the SMC page.

SMC is a valuable "safety" feature for me - it's already kept me out of trouble I might have otherwise stumbled into!

Now when do I get my cool "2008 Contributor" tag line?

[Dennis Peacock]

Now when do I get my cool "2008 Contributor" tag line?

Roger,

Please send a PM or email to Keith or Jackie Outten and one of them will get your account updated.

[Jeff Bratt]

Exactly right - read the articles or look at the study itself - not the headlines. The study was conducted by an industry council to resist any tightening of current regulatory limits for wood dust. Their conclusion was that the current limits 15 mg/m3 for total dust and 5 mg/m3 for respirable dust should not be lowered to proposed limits of 1 mg/m3 (inhalable fraction) for all species except Western red cedar, and 0.5 mg/m3 as the limit for Western red cedar. However, there were adverse health effects noticed in some instances - the study attributed these to mold in the wood being processed - so that wasn't a "wood dust" problem.

Do NOT draw any conclusions that "wood dust is not harmful". The headlines associated with reports on this study are blatant lies:
"Breath Easy: Wood Dust is Safe"
"Tulane Wood Dust Study Finds No Adverse Respiratory Health Risks"

There are heath risks - even at the current exposure levels - and since many home shops are wildly above the current OSHA limits, dust collection should still be a concern to all of us. Notice that exotic woods are barely mentioned and exposure to some of these can be significantly more dangerous than the common species studied.

[Art Mann]

This is not to deny that private funding sources aren't important. But if funding comes from the public sector, I have more faith in the data.

In a former life 3 decades ago, I used to work in the world of agriculture and chemical research. Some of the shoddiest and most biased work I have ever reviewed was done using exclusively public funds and government employed researchers. They were bound and determined to prove that certain chlorinated hydrocarbon insecticides were harmful to the environment. Their own research did not prove this but they claimed it did anyway. As a result, less effective ands more dangerous chemicals were introduced into the environment to replace the old ones.

Public funding is no guarantee of objectivity. I would trust research funded by the woodworking industry more.

[Steven Hardy]

To be concerned about excessive dust is one thing. To be a dust prohibitionist's is just plain bizarre to me.
It occurs to me that the human body is designed to cope with some amounts of dust or it would never be safe for us to go outside.If you can smell it,whatever it is...chances are its been in your lungs.
Are some of us becoming like Howard Hughs????

[Robert Gardner, Amherst MA]

James,
Most mainstream research in the sciences, medicine, and engineering is funded by agencies such as NSF, NIH, etc. The crucial element of this type of funding is the peer review. NSF and NIH have an incredibly rigorous system of blind, peer review panels that go to great pains to avoid "old boy network" conflicts of interest when dishing out the dough. This, together with publication in a top peer-reviewed scientific journal is the gold standard in assessing the quality and accuracy of scientific research. There is (and should be) some skepticism, both in the scientific communities and by the lay public of studies that obtain funding, especially exclusive funding from industrial sources, since even with the best of intentions (which is not always the case) the knowledge that the paycheck is signed by a company with a financial stake in the findings often has an impact in subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle ways.

As a case in point, there was a front page headline in the NY Times a year or two ago about a world class cancer researcher at one of the big medical schools (I believe it was Cornell, but can't remember exactly) who for years, had been an advocate of early screening and surgical intervention of lung cancer in smokers. She had published many studies purporting to evaluate such early detection and intervention methods, and claimed that they showed a significant benefit in terms of a better remission rate and increased longevity. However, her statistical methods were regarded with a great deal of skepticism by other cancer researchers, and anti-smoking organizations were appalled at the thrust of the work, since it gave the false impression to smokers that they could continue to smoke and rely on early detection/intervention to limit their risk of dying from lung cancer. The NY Times headline was about a recent disclosure that her research had received funding amounting to millions of dollars over a period of many years from an obscure research organization. A reporter had uncovered the fact that this outfit was set up as a front for one of the big tobacco companies, and that both the researcher and the dean of the medical school had direct knowledge of this relationship. Cancer researchers are legally required to disclose funding obtained from the tobacco industry, but she failed to disclose this fact in any of her grant applications and journal articles. At the time, some disciplinary proceedings were underway both for the researcher and the dean.

In regard to the wood dust study, the key points are that there is no mention of peer-reviewed funding, and that the article appeared in Wood Digest, which is not exactly at the level of credibility of JAMA. I think if you shredded it and fed it to your dust collector, it would come out the other end as extremely lightweight particulate matter, and would therefore be extremely dangerous to your health.

[Lee DeRaud]

And "The Thread That Would Not Die" award for 2008 goes to...