Document 1ZdgwM24J7yxaa9YpKp7Y28d

FILE NAME Newspaper & Magazine Articles NMA DATE 1974 Oct 27 DOC NMA093 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION NYT - The Hidden Plague By Alan AndersoJrn. NewYork Times Current file Oct 27 1974 ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times 1851-2002 1851-2002 1851-2002 Pg Even the families of some workers are endangered by occupational diseases The hidden plague a 84, 2 Lng ta: Daughter of a plague Isabelle Van Zile victim of a lung tumor associated with exposure to Imagine this in your history books In October 1974 amid much fanfare a revolu- tionary process burst upon the typewriter industry | . * when a research engineer for the Teletouch Corpo- . ration finally invented the ribbonless typewriter He found that type blocks made of the metal pantalonium could burn an imprint into specially 4 treated paper obviating the need for ribbons and cutting manufacturing costs by 8 per cent The @ following spring a mysterious epidemic arose throughout the country characterized by shortness of breath chest pains insomnia dizziness and in seven to 10 days pulmonary failure and death Amid the chaos epidemiologists sleuths who trace the origin of disease outbreaks Hae found that the victims were all typists secretaries journalists and others who had used the new type- ; writers Investigating the chemistry of the typing J. was process they discovered that each time a letter asbestos was sea onr to e papd er traces of a volatpietlroe- chemical were released into air Tests demonstrated that this chemical caused irreversible lung changes in laboratory animals after a lag time of several aM weeks and in humans after several months A na- tional furor ensued during which the officers of the typewriter company went to fail and the inventor himself was kept in protective seclusion After a trial that dragged on for two years the officers were all acquitted No laws could be found regulating nonconsumable chemicals Unfortunately there is at least as much reality than A as fantasy in this tale The reality is that more | 100,000 persons die annually of occupational dis- eases according to the President's Report on Occupational Safety and Health of 1972 and 390,000 more contract disabling occupational diseases The fantasy is that such statistics make Alan Anderson Jr. is a freelance writer who speclalizes in scientific and medical subjects Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission Asbestos miner His work and the smoking any impression on the public The carnage occurs in slow motion hidden behind the walls of the several million workplaces of this country's 89 million workers Most chronic especially cancer not become apparent for many years after first exposure The victims often die at home long after becoming too sick to work when death comes it does not appear to be related It's like a major war notes winning biologist George Wald The casualties however aren't fighting but just trying to make a living The enemies are largely unidentified hidden among the 50,000 or so chemicals currently in use by industry The Government regulates the use of only about 450 which have in haphazard fash- ion proved dangerous to man Even for this small group which include asbestos uranium and other now obvious health threats there is no rational system for setting maximum exposure levels Each year another 3,000 new substances are introduced whose effect upon humans is un- tested Belatedly and often by accident epidemiol- ogists are discovering that many of them cause cancer both in experimental animals and in humans The World Health Organization estimates that at least 75 to 85 per cent of all cancers are triggered by environmental agents such as indus- trial chemicals Since World War II the variety of these agents has increased dramatically in what might be considered a second industrial revolution based largely upon a bewildering variety of plastics and other petroleum chemicals These chemicals when they cause cancer typi- cally require 20 to 40 years to produce tumor growth Significantly industrialized nations such as the United States are now passing the year mark from the beginning of the great plastics boom of the nineteen This correlation was brought home in frightening fashion earlier this year by the revelation that vinyl chloride a simple petrochemical byproduct used to make the plastic po yvinylchloride is carcinogenic or cancer ing Breathing air contaminatwietdh small amounts of vinyl chloride VC causes after a long latency period an extremely rare form of liver cancer which is invariably fatal VC was the first of the large chemical materials that were in- troduced by the petrochemical industry after the war says Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mt. Sinai College of Medicine in New York Because of the long latency period of occupational cancers we are just seeing the first deaths to be caused by VC There are going to be many more Selikoff who has earned an international repu- sation for his role in exploring and publicizing the carcinogenic nature of asbest^s has rather sud- denly found himself at the center of a dozen or so occupational investigations of unprece- dented scale He has created under the title of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory a medical cen oft soe rtsrcee nted red conhs is i owd n ce onsr ide- rable reputation anda brilliant team of occupational epidemiologists In a field traditionally short on both funds and prestige Selikoff has secured mil- lions of dollars in Federal grants and the open admiration of other health researchers He's at the center of the action says a colleague He both pushes and pulls his team with the relentless energy of a man confronting a mountain of un- finished business We have a backlog of unin- vestigated health threats from as far back as the nineteen says the year Sellkoff Which do we take first old problems like mine dust and lead or the new chemicals like vinyl chloride We hardly know where to begin In both the diversity of its talent and sophistica- tion of its technology the lab itself is unique in the United States and probably in the world the only comparable facility is the Pneumoconiosis Re- search Unit of Great Britain's Medical Research Council Selikoff's team includes six clinical phy sicians six field epidemiologists one industrial pulmonary physiologists hygienist two mineralogisTthse mineralolgayb headed and headebdy 15 Dr. Arthur Langer is crucial to Selikoff's operation Pinpointing the source of mineral threats such as asbestos and talc is possible only after precise identoficrf ystai l fc ibea rs ft oui nd io n tn he lungs Langer's analysis of complex crystals may be suggestion of danger from a labor leader concerned about working conditions or from ani- mal studies with a certain chemical The next step is to find a high group that has been exposed to the threat example members of a union local who worked with vinyl chloride ber tween 25 and 20 years ago If the investigators are able to obtain lists of names they then attempt a sample trace trying to find 10 per cent of the working group If this proves reasoneaasby lthyey fowl ithllo ittlw e P. R. as a Selikoff investigator puts it explaining to workers why they must the condutec diot us interrogations physical exams and pulmonary tests Then a physician and a field epide arem assi igno ed l to to he g casi e as nd t the study branches into two parts 1 a mortality survey to determine the cause of death of those who have died and 2 a clinical study to examine all those still alive The process commonly takes sev- eral years and follow studies continue indefi- nitely he procedure was dramatically accelerated in the vionf y vinl yl beca bothubes caue se it threatens so many thousands of workers and because the evidence against it burst so suddenly into the open We had to drop everything we were doing when vinyl chloride hit reblaeba ler ary y Seloi f k Selo ikoff f'sft' eamsa few months ago Rarely has a case been proven so quickly and precisely in the notoriously imprecise field of epidemiology On Jan. 22 1974 the F. Goodrich Chemical Company broke the news that since September 1971 three of its employien sa chloride LouiinsLvouiislvilllee Ky had died of angi of o the ls ivea r Forr succ h a o rarem disa ease i3n0,000 consecutive au- Continued on Page 23 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission Continued from Page 21 topsies at Bronx Veterans Administration Hospital no cases appeared was a miniep demic In a crisis atmosphere the Department of Labor held hearings Feb. 15 and heard more bad news from Dr. Cesare Matonidirectoorf the Institute of Oncology at the University of Bologna Maltoni for more than a year had been inducing cancer in rodents by using low levels of vinyl chloride 250 parts per million lower than that found in some working condi- angiosarcoma has been induced by only 50 p.p.m. and lower dosages are being tried It is obvious says Selikoff that no threshold yet exists he National Insti- tute for Occupational Safety and Health N.J.O.S.H. has been keeping tabs on VC deaths which now stand at 27. Recorded cases are growing not only in number but also in kind At first all deaths were detected among the 6,500 workers directly involved in the manufacture of the vinyl- chloride gas or its conversion into plastic resin polyvinyl rec PVeCn Mort e rel ceny tly however deaths have been rep furo therr alot ng te he ld ine Materials used in fireproofing such clothing as children's pajamas often required by law may combine with urine and prespiration to give off causing fumes a among workers who make some of the thousands of de- rivative consumer products One victim had loaded VC in pressurized cans for use as a spray propellant another made PVC dictabelts still another wrapped electri- cal wires in PVC Six men who made plastic floor tiles in Germany have precursor symptoms of angiosarcoma A woman in Niagara Falls who since the end of World War II lived four blocks down- wind of a PVC plant has died of a liver cancer Many other plants exude measurable amounts of VC and the Environmental Protection Ad- ministration is trying to trace the 200 million pounds of gas that escape into the atmosphere each year Further evidence has implicated VC in Were vinyl chloride a more exotic chemical whose use an aerosol propellant for hair sprays garden pesticides and other sprays and PVC is the second most widely used plastic after polyethylene in the country fashioned into food wrappers blood bags water pipes toys dentures shower curtains phonograph records furniture coverings and thousands of other products In 1973 some 5.3 billion pounds of VC gas were produced al- most all for conversion to plastic The importance of PVC production according to Albert C. Clark of the Manu- said J. William Lloyd of N.IO.S.H. that this is going to be the occupational disease of the century aspect of the VC scandails that the chemhiascta radlitionally been regaradseidnert and innocuotuhes re is no regulatory mechanism to test this false assumption Another unusual aspect of the trial and conviction of vinyl chloride is that as in the case of the fictitiotuysp ing prosetcheuprtosiecuotinon had an open case against it In epidemiology causes and effects easily blend VC caused a more coMMON disease such as lung cancer It might never have been caught It is extremely difficult to prove anything in this field says Dr. Selikoff We suspected that asbestos causes lung cancer for 30 years before we were able to prove it with laboratory ani- mals We still are not sure how cigarette smoke produces _ cancer We think it is benza- pyrene but the average roof- ing worker inhales as much benzapyrene from tar fumes as may be obtaibynse mod k- ing about 700 cigaretatdeasy You would think they would be falloiffntg he roofs with lung cancer but they're not The social consequencaerse too impotro t allaownat ny Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission assumptions There is no sub- of this 1 had read about the Pater- ; eda 2 ; Zz has yr /bs f/ t has koff calls it leather epldemiology At the Paterson asbestos plant a lot of the wor werek blace ks fr roms Co- Jumbia and Camden S. Co. many of them relatBuet dto find them you had to know their street names If you go asking about George Smith you may get a few guesses if you ask for Streaky you're more likely to get him right away ... If someolinmpes or squints or has three eyes it makes it easier to find him of ambua t youz 'd bee amad zed > at how many lost people we get in the end When I read stories in the paper about som looke ing fo or an loste sis- ter from Czechoslovakia I get tempted to try to find her I know I could do it in a minute but I just don't have any spare minutes his 1941 and 1945 at the Union Asbestos Rubber Company U.N.A.R.C.O. in Paterson histories between 1960 and 1971 with standard mortality DuDur ringi than t perg iod 47 deaths would have been ex- pected instead there were 105. Two or three deaths from lung cancer would have been expected there were 25 Deaths from cancer of the stomach colon and rectum were three times the expected Irving Selikoff's laboratory work force with a nonmobile population What we would really like is a group of work- ers who stay in one job for 35 years and then retire in their home town on a pensioni More commonly there is a lot of movement Workers typictraylaljoyb for six months and then disappear Then we have to track them down staront ly i witnh g an adtd hatr maye be s 20 ys ears da oft dae te Tracing these people is kind of like doing a crossword puzzle Each person you find gives you an extra chance of finding someone else He'll Library Every wao s n vee ry helpful on that case The only uncooperative group is the . Social Security Administra- tion They have a small staff and say tney can't be bothered If they would help us we'd save a lot of time and money I'm telling you I'd almost be willing to have an af- fair with the head of it if that would help expertize in thoracic diseasen A native New Yorker he grad- uated from ColumUb nii vea r- ; days A lot of this work is literally knocking on doors said Mrs. Levine That's why Dr. Seli- rael Hospital and first came to suspect the insidinoatuurse of occupational diseases when some of his chest patientisn Patwe herr e hs e hao s bn een associated with Barnert Me- morial Hospital since 1947 showed an alarming incidence of asbestosis lung cancer Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission and indiscriminatabreasive liyn talcum abra andsai brv asie ve soaps Compounds responsible for permanent press cloth such as organophosphataensd mercury are highly toxic if released When furniture padded with foam rubber urethane is burned by a dropped cigarette or another heat source it gives off chloride poisonous fumes and phosgaenn ere ve gas used in World War 1 researchers , Selikoff's group is cooperat- toxic solvents and fungicides roofers who breathe benza- a meter in diameter to be trapped by the upper respira- tory tract Then in the nine- homes the cheapeIsntdustryinsides escape into human these pleuralimplanted thelungs surfacessurfaces them of rat other researchers researchers Germany did the same with the peritoneal membrane that encloses the lung Both groupsgroups sho thatw anye fibd ers nature of their chemical . animals Any fibers So far industry's response to the threat has been to ignore it by say- Reproducweitdh permission of the copyright owner Further reproduction without prohibited ing there is no demonstrated health hazard Of course these small fibers have only been in use for about 10 years and on the basis of our ex- perience with occupational cancers we would not expect any disease to have appeared yet Even with asbestos lung scarring doesn't show up for at least 10 years If supposedly inert substances such as vinyl chloride asbestos and fibrous glass can cause cancer what is the effect of working in an atmos- phere laden with chemicals known to be highly reactive and volatile Some oil refin- eries for example turn out more than 5,000 petrochemical products many of which find their way into humans In general says Selikoff with a shake of the finger chemicals are used in industry because they are chemical- ly active This means they tend to be blologically active as well Anything that reacts with our lungs isn't going to do us any good elikoff is particularly upseatt the apparently accelerating effect of exposure to two or more toxic chemicals " have a theory he announced one day in his office It is that most human - cancers are caused by multiple factors If this is true it could be that cancer is produced by very low levels of several carcinogens even though any one by itself would have no effect We have already shown with Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond of the American Cancer Society that In the case of asbestos work- ers two carcinogens are more than twice as bad as one As- bestos workers who smoke cigarettes get lung cancer at a rate eight times higher than smokers who do not work with asbestos and 92 times higher than people who neither smoke nor work with asbestos In the case of refinery workers or urban dwellers who breathe city air the com- binations may be much more complicated Even when such health workers as Selikoff find their way through the complications to achieve a chemical indict- ment a maze of complications remains It is not easy to induce or even coerce industry to give up a profitable process or to spend money on filtration systems Although industry has come a long way since the days of sweatshops and child labor management is still loathe to accept outside intervention in plant processes " think in dustry is changing says Selikoff but there are still some bad actors around He is being diplomatic One of our biggest problems says Henry Anderson is that the plants won't let us see their health records Industry will say the records are private or they have disappeared and we have to rely upon the unions for almost all of our information The best recent example of industry's attitude has been the decision by the Pittsburgh Corporation to shut a polluting asbestos plant in Tyler Tex rather than clean it up - A story relentlessly documented in Paul Brodeur's book Ex- pendable Americans Viking Compass Even today the Manville Corporation the free world's largest producer of asbestos output ^fin the Soviet Union is somewhat higher than in the U.S. seeks to dilute the impact of Selikoff's findings which have shown for 10 years the carcinogenicity of even very low levels of asbestos dust Dr. Selikoff is very often held up as the one authority in asbestos research said a Manville spokesman recently think that in the industry and in the field you will find there are a lot of others The two names of- fered by the spokesman were those of J. Corbett MacDonald of McGill University whose work has long been supported by the asbestos industry and - George Wright who is an em- ploye of Manville Both men have consistently sought to play down the threat posed by asbestos to the 200,000 workers presently exposed to it and the 800,000 who have been exposed in the past The role of the Government in the war against occupational cancer dates only from April 1971 when the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect The act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration O.S.H.A. to guarantee a safe and healthful workplace for all workers and set up N.LO.S.H. which is charged with researching health problems and recommending safe ty standards The effectiveness of these measures has already been blunted by lack of funding There are so few health inspectors that at the rate they were able to visit the nation's workplaces during the first eight months of the act they would need 230 years to inspect them all O.S.H.A.'s enforcement of health rules has Continued on Page 32 with permission of the Further owner copyright reproduction prohibited withoutpermision The World Health Organization esti- mates that 75 to 85 per cent of all cancers are triggered by environ- mental agents such as industrial chemicals Since 1945 these agents have increased dramatically Conti fronm u Pagee d 28 When death comes it is sel- dom linked with occupation in any records Getting sick isn't enough declares Dr. Su- san Daum who now studying byssai monn g to exts ilei worskers with the Mt. Sinal team Government and industry say you have to be able to count the bodies in the street They don't take into account the workers who lose their health who are forced to retire early who die young The textile partiics upalrtaicrullaryly hard deal with because it is difficult to prove mortality from byssiIn t io s ns otihas rd to prove sickness but that doesn't have the same impact as a stack of bodies An increasing number of | no sense of mission or dedi- cation to the implementation of the act on behalf of the workers it was intended to protect Rather there is a steady and prevailing attitude in the top echelons that shows priority compassion for prob- lems and inconventences of management If 100,000 typists died on the job witahwei ek n of each other it would be Nimpos tosiginobrelte he immdi angn er e of on ccut pational indiAc s a indtice atd ed however most industrially caused illnesses develop not in one week but over many years at an imperceptible pace The victim is slowly unable to work of epidemiology in favor of the more obvious ismes of wages hours and vacations Now however a number of unl led o by n the s Oil Chemical and Atomic Workerarse turning aggressitvo einldeypendent medical experts such as Selikoff supplying them with the union lists that make cohort studies possible and tea thec ir mh embi ersn to cg ollect air samples and other data in the workplace Tothw is ea nd Dr rs Dd aum and Jeanne Stellampa hyn s- ical chemist have written a volume titled Work Is Dangerous to Your Health Pantheon desitogtrn ane slad te the relevant medicine biology and industrial hygiene into the English that people use every day and to explain the operation of such essential tools as sampling devices him himses lf ie s firl m inf the conviction that workemrusst learn to save themselves fac who t worko in ar facy tory or in a mill can see what is going on around them better than we can he says Our miss is i toohen lp them clean it up @ copyright owner Further reproduction