In today’s world, it is hard to find a sports field that is not made of artificial turf. Even my somewhat small high school in Minnesota – our main field that all our sports teams and gym classes use is made of turf. Many people don’t think twice about artificial turf. Most places that install turf simply think of the money they might save but should that be the only thing that people worry about while deciding to install turf?
An investigative study done by NBC shows that there may be a link between artificial turf and cancer. The reason there might be a link is because of what artificial turf is made of. Between the fake blades of grass is what is known as “crumb rubber.” Crumb rubber is shredded truck and cart tires and contains all the same chemicals you would find in the tires. The International Agency for Cancer Research labeled four different carcinogens found in crumb rubber: arsenic, benzene, cadmium, and nickel. All of which are not considered farm full at low exposures. (A carcinogen, as defined by MedicineNet.com, is a substance or agent that causes cancer.)
Picture provided by NBC shows the crumb rubber used in artificial turf fields
NBC’s study focuses on a link between soccer goalies and cancer, mainly blood cancers. If you think about it, soccer goalies are the players who are diving and sliding around the turf the most. Yes, many other sports cause players into the turf as well but most other sports that involve turf use mouth guards, which help keep a player’s mouth shut and make it difficult for crumb rubber to get in their mouth. Soccer goalies do not wear mouth guards.
How Safe is the Artificial Turf on Your Child’s Sports Field? by NBC (video)
The NBC investigation brought light to Amy Griffin, a University of Washington soccer coach, who has compiled a list of 38 American soccer players, 34 of which are goalies. Griffin compiled the list after two of her goalies were diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
First and foremost, no research has linked cancer to artificial turf. The Synthetic Turf Council states that the evidence that has been collected shows that artificial turf is safe. All studies that have been done have all been observational and because researchers cant prove that artificial turf does in fact cause cancer you cannot assume that correlation means causation or the possibility of chance. One thing that can be ruled out is reverse causation.
Could artificial turf and causing cancer be like smoking and developing cancer? By that I mean, could the effects not be evident until a certain number of years? Who knows. One thing that does need to be done is continued studies on this subject and testing of crumb rubber by non-biased organizations. If such questions continue to come up without any reliable results, why not start using other forms of rubber? Like a high school in Washington plans to use recycled tennis shoe soles. I also believe this could have someone to do with the lack of information and science surrounding this topic. Like we discussed in class, people used to believe that blood letting was safe and now we look back and cannot believe that they did that. Will we look back at artificial turf in disbelief that we used to play on it?
What this NBC investigation makes people do is think more about whether or not they want their children playing on artificial turf. As of right now there isn’t any data that directly supports the claim that artificial turf can lead to cancer but that doesn’t mean there never will be.
For myself, I grew up playing mostly indoor sports and barely had to deal with turf but that does not mean I will never develop some for of cancer. There are so many cancer causing things in our world today that I don’t think I would keep my children from playing on artificial turf, as of right now.
http://www.syntheticturfcouncil.org/?page=FAQs
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=2625
http://www.iarc.fr/search.php?cx=009987501641899931167%3Ajwf5bx4tx78&cof=FORID%3A9&ie=UTF-8&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&sa=&q=carcinogens#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=carcinogens&gsc.page=1
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/how-safe-artificial-turf-your-child-plays-n220166
Class lecture – 9/25/2014
I played on a turf field in high school for 3 years and I don’t see how there could be a link between the field and cancer. Any toxic or harmful materials would be washed out with the rain. I think that the experiment that was composed did not take other confounding variables into affect. I can’t assume that turf fields are dangerous just because some soccer goalies got sick. Cancer could run in their family, they could live an unhealthy lifestyle, and they could just have been unlucky. I don’t think this will stop me from using a turf field when i get the chance too.
Growing up I played soccer all my life and depending on weather conditions or the stadium we would always play on turf with no problems. I agree that it pretty much depends on what sport you are playing at the time. Even in soccer we would get knocked down and our goalie would dive to save the ball from going into the net and he would always have that ”crumb rubber” stuck in his mouth. This is very interesting though because I think it needs to be addressed to coaches and turf owning facilities more often. I thought this link would give us some more information. http://lifeaftercrumbrubber.blogspot.com
In high school, I played football all four years, and we played on a turf field. So naturally, this article related to me a little bit. Football is a very physical sport, and when you play it you will find yourself on the ground often. After games or practice, I would find the little pieces of “crumb rubber” all over my body, and in the weirdest places. However, I never thought that this might be potentially dangerous to me. Furthermore, I disagree with what you said about players with mouth guards not getting crumb rubber in their mouths. If anything, it increases the chance of getting it into your mouth. I would constantly find myself spitting rubber out of my mouth in between plays. Even worse would be if you dropped your mouth guard, or it got knocked out, and then got covered in crumb rubber. Furthermore, the pieces are so small, so I probably accidentally swallowed a bunch throughout my high school career. This article here discusses the effects on consuming crumb rubber. It lists countless health hazards that are associated with ingesting crumb rubber. This has really opened my eyes because I never realized how harmful these little things can be to someone. Just like you, I am curious to see if any hazardous long term side effects are discovered from being exposed to crumb rubber.