Other toxic chemicals have substantive health impacts.
Lead is likely the worst toxic chemical globally, yet arsenic, cadmium, mercury, asbestos, flame retardants, pesticides and others also cause disease and death around the world.
Other toxics: what is counted and what is not
| Toxic | WHO: current premature deaths | IHME: current estimate | GRIT take |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asbestos | 200,000+ deaths/yr from workplace exposure (2016) | ~217,000 deaths/yr; occupational exposure only | Substantively undercounted by both. Mesothelioma is used as the proxy, and is poorly recognized in LMICs |
| Arsenic | ~641,000 deaths/yr from dietary inorganic arsenic (2021). About 140M people drink water above the guideline | ~10,000 deaths/yr; occupational exposure only | Updates to BoD needed, mitigation programs evaluated |
| Cadmium | ~50 deaths/yr from dietary cadmium (2021) | ~800 deaths/yr; occupational exposure only | Complex because of its link with smoking, and difficulty to disentangle the cardiovascular impact |
| Methylmercury | No deaths counted; ~2.4M healthy life-years lost to IQ loss (2021) | None reported | BoD analysis needed. |
| PBDEs | Not estimated | None reported | BoD analysis needed for LMIC exposure. |
| Bisphenol A (BPA) | Not estimated | None reported | Alternates inadequately studied |
| Phthalates | Not estimated | None reported | DEHP well studied but now phased out. Alternates? |
| Pesticides | Up to ~150,000 deaths/yr, mostly suicide (WHO 2024) | No population burden reported | Needs thoughtful analysis of BoD and mitigation. |
| PFAS | Not estimated | None reported | More research needed |
| Others | Dioxin: no deaths counted, ~7,700 healthy life-years lost (2021) | Radon ~82,000, silica ~10,000 to 13,000, benzene ~1,900 deaths/yr | More research needed |
How to read these numbers
Counts differ because each group counts different things.
Harm that reaches people through food
Counts harm that reaches people through food, plus some work and poisoning estimates. Chemicals outside these studies show as not estimated.
Only proven cause-and-effect pairs
Counts only cause-and-effect pairs it has judged proven. For most toxics apart from lead, that means workplace exposure only. That needs to change.
Common sense points to where to act
Evaluations of impact (harm) are difficult as dose/response may be contentious, and exposures are simply not adequately measured. But common sense can point us to toxics that cause enormous damage to large populations, places where we ought to act.