Instead, these ingredients are fully synthesized in laboratory settings, and DuPont is one of the world's leaders in sustainable and safe elastane manufacturing processes. There's no getting around the fact that the production of Lycra involves carcinogenic chemicals, but scientific research has indicated that elastane factory workers in Sweden exhibit negligibly greater cancer risk, which seems to indicate that workplaces in which this material is made are not very hazardous. No studies have been done, however, to examine the impact of elastane production on workers in other countries.