Draft Press Release on

IARC Nested Case Control Study

INDUSTRY TO SPONSOR 2.2 MILLION EUROS CANCER STUDY

On Thursday the 13th of May 2004 an agreement on conducting a "Case-control study of lung cancer nested in the IARC Multicentric Cohort Study of European Asphalt workers" was signed between

Ø the World Health Organization – International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)

Ø and an industry group consisting of the following associations:

- Concawe

- Eurobitume

- European Asphalt Paving Association (EAPA)

- National Asphalt Pavement Association, USA, (NAPA)

- Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association, USA, (ARMA)

- National Roofing Contractors Association, USA, (NRCA)

The study will commence the 1st of June 2004 and is expected to be finished 2006/2007.

The total cost of the study, 2.2 million Euros, will be made available by the associations in the industry group.

This study forms the second phase of the "International Epidemiological Study on Cancer among Asphalt Workers" conducted by IARC and is designed to clarify prior results by identifying the effect of confounding factors. The first phase was completed in 2001.

The study will examine the past exposures and other risk factors such as cigarette smoking for a subset of approximately 2,500 workers of the cohort of 80,000 people in much more detail than has been possible during the first phase of the study and also include their exposures during employment in other industries than the asphalt industry.