[Risks to consumers and PVC workers from vinyl chloride].

Over the past two years the level of exposure of workers in PVC polymerization factories to vinylchloride has been greatly lowered. Thus there should be no further cases of so-called vinylchloride disease, which mainly affects the connective tissues. Also, the risk of liver hemangiosarcomas should not be higher under present working conditions than in the general population. Worldwide, 42 cases of VC sarcomas have been described among the 20,000 to 40,000 workers exposed since 1930. The consumer uptake of VC from PVC-packaged food is almost a million times lower than the carcinogenic threshold dose, and this rules out any danger arising from that source.