AstroTurf/cancer story

Just saw a story on NBC News about a rash of soccer players getting cancer, and the common link seemed to be artificial turf, or the ground-up tires in it that approximate dirt in it. They mentioned that a lot of the cancer patients were goalies. They didn’t compare the cancer rates to athletes in general, or to soccer players who play on natural turf.

Is this well known? Is there anything to it? The coach raising the alarm had a list of about 60 players affected, which might not be statistically significant.

Pretty much shoots down the whole story without something to compare to.

Here’s one link. Looks like a typical scare headline and media ignorance.

I’d think if there was anything to it, there would be a high rate of cancer among football players.

Just because NBC didn’t present data doesn’t mean some doesn’t exist. See for example:

http://www.ehhi.org/turf/cancer_patterns_1114.shtml

When I first heard about this story it was noted that soccer goalies were the ones susceptible and they would more likely be exposed to the infill substance made of ground tires from hitting the ground while blocking goals. There is a lack of comparative data to other people exposed to the material in a similar manner, but there is a greater incidence of lymphoma in these players than on average for teenagers. That in itself makes the subject worth studying even if no conclusions can be drawn currently.

:confused:
Goal keepers spend significantly more time on the deck during a game than those playing in the field? In any case you are talking of a few seconds in a game.

Plenty of nasty chemicals in tyres but wouldn’t exposure through breathing in volatiles be a larger issue and one that affected outfielder more (i.e. breathing harder when running)

IMHO keepers would be more likely to get greater exposure from chewing on loose bits of infill while they lean against the posts.

Players of American football, especially linemen and running backs, spend a lot more time on the deck than soccer players of any position. You’d expect they would get lymphomas at much higher rates if this hypothesis is correct. Have they even looked to see if that’s the case?

If Astroturf was a major carcinogen, members of the early Houston Astros teams should all be dead by now, or at least have a horrible health record in comparison to members of the early Mets teams.

The idea of additional rigorous studies into the “crumb rubber connection” is fine. But it’s difficult to be impressed by someone’s list of cases which, even if well documented don’t control for other factors.

It’s not uncommon for people to come up with alarming lists of cancers supposedly caused by one agent or another, garnering a brief burst of publicity but which don’t pan out in the long run. And while this is another matter entirely, Kennedy assassination buffs have long touted a scary list of “suspicious” deaths among witnesses/conspiracyphiles, but it doesn’t wash on closer examination.

I’m stating what I saw in a report. They said that goal keepers hit the ground more often in a way that kicks up minute particles of the infill. Again, there is no comparative data to other sports, the reason to investigate is a finding of a greater incidence of lymphoma in soccer goalies than the general population, not because any conclusion has been reached.

Sure, but in your average 90 minute soccer game, how many times does the goalkeeper even get anywhere near the ball, and how many of those are diving saves or anything that would kick up the rubber particles? Keepers are some of the less active players on the team overall.

Compare that with say… a defensive tackle in American Football, who’s likely to be in on tackles, or otherwise doing stuff that would stir up the rubber particles even more.

I’d think that for anyone to definitively pin down the cancers on the field, you’d have to show that not only are soccer players having the problem, but that football players are too. Unless, somehow, the fields aren’t shared, or that the fields are significantly different. Or, and this may be the kicker, the football team practices on grass, while the soccer team practices on the artificial turf. Maybe it’s an exposure thing- if the football team plays maybe 7-8 60 minute games on artificial turf a year, and does most of their practice on natural grass, they’re going to be exposed a lot less than a soccer team who practices 3-4 days a week and plays 1-2 games a week on artificial turf.

If my memory is correct, those ground up tire Astroturf fields have only been used for the last fifteen or twenty years. There are other industries where people have been in closer contact with tires for their entire careers. I’m not seeing how this would first be seen in soccer goalies.

People are comparing goalies to American football players, why not compare them to the people who grind up the tires, or guys laying asphalt

Yes, those are the things to look for. There could be all sorts of reasons why this is or is not a concern. But finding a higher incidence of cancer than normal is worth investigating, it’s just not worth jumping to conclusions about. At the moment it could be anomalous data or it could be an indication of a genuine problem.

I read this article last year:

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/artificial-turf-debate/how-safe-artificial-turf-your-child-plays-n220166

Essentially, they knew something was happening (chemo nurses would see a young woman with a certain type of cancer, they could guess she was a soccer goalie and be right almost every time) and were working with theories as to why, but it seemed like one of the basic ideas was that the tires were being ground up into tiny crumbs, which stick to the skin, get embedded into cuts and scrapes, and get into the mouths of these players (and goalies in particular).

Maybe it has something to do with used tires vs. new ones. Maybe it has something to do with the tires being shredded into tiny crumbs. It almost certainly has to do with the fact that these crumbs are ending up literally getting into the bodies of these athletes via cuts and scrapes and abrasions and getting them in your mouth and maybe swallowing/inhaling them occasionally. OSHA rules might ensure that the people grinding up the tires are wearing personal protective equipment, and they are likely far less likely to get them embedded into their skin or ingest them by mouth.

If this is happening to goalies and not to workers at the tire plant, that might have a lot to do with it.

Compare them to people driving to work and back every day. Tons of rubber dust wears of onto the roadways every day.