The Human Bitumen Study

Recently, the Human Bitumen Study has been finished (Schluter, 2011). Including 500 workers from more than 80 construction sites it represents the world-wide largest study on adverse health effects caused by bitumen. The study answers a question that has been controversially discussed since decades: Bitumen exposed workers do not show higher levels of DNA damage than unexposed individuals. On the other hand bitumen workers showed irritative effects in the lower airways (Raulf-Heimsoth et al., 2011b). To give our readers an overview over the recent developments we summarized the most important results of the Human Bitumen Study in the table below.