Railroad welding fumes exposure and cancer

The smoke you can see rising off a weld is made of tiny metal particles and gases. Those particles measure less than one micrometer across, much too small to see by themselves, as IARC noted. Welding fumes are a known cause of lung cancer.

Among the metals that can turn up in the fume, OSHA's welding fact sheet names arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, and nickel. Welding converts chromium into hexavalent chromium, a highly toxic form that can cause cancer and harms the eyes, skin, nose, throat, and lungs.

A worker's dose depended on the welding process used, whether local exhaust ventilation was in place, and how the job was carried out. New welders or those with little training may have been exposed to higher levels, according to the IARC review.

In March 2017, seventeen scientists from ten countries gathered at IARC to decide if welding, plus two related chemicals, can cause cancer. Their summary appeared in The Lancet Oncology under the date April 10, 2017, and the complete findings make up IARC Monographs Volume 118.

Since 1989, welding fume had sat at Group 2B, only possibly cancer-causing. The upgrade to Group 1 came from substantial new evidence drawn from worker studies and laboratory research, as IARC explained.

The clearest results were lung cancer tied to the fume and melanoma of the eye tied to the ultraviolet light from the welding arc. Kidney cancer was rated a possible outcome. For other cancers, the evidence was called inadequate, which means the science had not settled the question either way.

State workers' compensation does not cover railroad workers. A federal statute called FELA, the Federal Employers' Liability Act, instead lets a worker sue the railroad when the railroad's negligence caused an injury or death, fully or even partly, under 45 U.S.C. § 51.

Illness qualifies. The Supreme Court held in Urie v. Thompson (1949) that FELA reaches slow-developing occupational diseases, not just accidents.

A worker must show that railroad negligence played a part in the injury, even a small one. The Court said in Rogers v. Missouri Pacific (1957) that a jury gets the case if railroad negligence played any part at all, even the slightest. CSX v. McBride (2011) confirmed that no tougher causation test applies.

Recovery can include medical bills, wages lost now and in the future, and damages for pain and suffering, as a government report on FELA describes. When a worker has died, the claim moves to the personal representative, on behalf of the worker's husband or wife and children.

It's a fair worry. IARC looked at whether asbestos or smoking could explain the extra lung cancer seen in welders and found they could not, as the review states. So a smoking history doesn't erase the link to your work, and if your work also exposed you to asbestos or radiation, both known causes of cancer according to Harvard's report, that is part of your work history too.

Even a worker who shares some of the blame can still recover under 45 U.S.C. § 53; the jury simply trims the award by the worker's percentage. And 45 U.S.C. § 54 says the law does not treat a worker as having accepted the job's risks where railroad negligence contributed.

In Norfolk & Western v. Ayers (2003), which involved work-related asbestosis, the Court held that workers could recover full damages from a railroad whose negligence jointly caused their injury, though damages can still be reduced when a worker was partly at fault.

FELA gives a worker three years to file, and the case may be brought in either federal or state court, per 45 U.S.C. § 56. For a slowly developing disease, the Supreme Court said in Urie v. Thompson that the three-year period begins when the accumulated effects of exposure become apparent.

In January 2026, a New Jersey appeals court affirmed the dismissal of a car inspector's bladder cancer suit: he was diagnosed in May 2014 and his doctor told him then that the cancer was linked to what he breathed at work, but he did not file until April 2019, so the court held that claims for the cancer as it stood in 2014 were barred by the three-year limit, per the opinion. Remembering when that first conversation happened matters.

Any railroad rule meant to stop workers from talking about a coworker's injury or death is void under 45 U.S.C. § 60. Former coworkers can share what they know about a worker's injury.