Document 4JVOymvDGgN7aOwba7Rexqwgj

i i by Ralph L. Harding, Jr. In early 1974 B. F. Goodrich an nounced publicly that it suspected vinyl chloride ol having contributed to the deaths of three workers at its Louisville plant from angiosarcoma, a rare type of liver cancer. Industrial health specialists around the world im mediately rushed to their libraries to scour the scientific literature for past articles on the health effects of vinyl chloride inhalation. They found little to indicate a problem. There was a 1949 study of 73 workers in a Russian plastics fabricat- 7CU `THOUGHT Would it surprise you to learn that all the answers you thought you'd never find are already within your consciousness? Parairahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiogrjpny of a Yogi, said, "Yon should trans fer your attention from failure to success, from worry to calmness, from mental wan derings to concentration, from restlessness to peace, and from peace to the divine bliss within. When you attain this state of SelfteaI i rn t i on, the purpose of your lile will have been gloriously fulfilled." Self-Realization fellowship teaches you how to apply meditation to find your answers and the wisdom necessary (or successful liv ing in today's complicated world. FREE BOOKLET ''3*4 : tcM E**t V ij Seit-Healiration Fellowship 3330 San Rafael Ave., Dept. lc.s Angeles, Calif. 00065 ' | Please send me a liee copy of your booklet 14 "Undreamed-of Possibilities." .AMF Sf.tuf d city._ STATE-'I''' i i _ ... ,, E.-dfJ ITrH E Y-sl ! yjsj Itr^-dl 1. ing factory in which the authors found evidence of "more or less marked hep atitis." Polyvinyl chloride was not pro duced there, but PVC was plasticized with, among other chemicals, poly chlorinated biphenyls. There were additional animal experiments per formed from the mid-fifties onward, notably at Dow Chemical in 1961. In retrospect it is agreed by govern ment, industry, and the medical pro fession that, knowing what we do to day about vinyl chloride, we should have paid more attention to the rela tively scanty and incomplete informa tion available 15 or so years ago. That we did not do so is indeed a tragedy, health effects of VC inhalation. Let us take a brief look at the rec ord. In 1966 a reversible disease of the bones of the fingers called acroostcolvsis was discovered among some heavily exposed PVC reactor cleaners. Prompt industrial hygiene efforts by the PVC industry quickly eliminated this problem. However, it was felt that ad ditional research into the cause of this disease was needed. Accordingly. Dr. P.L. Viola began a series of VC inhala tion experiments, employing exposure levels as high as 30,000 ppm. Dr. Viola produced cancers of the skin, lung, and bones in the test animals. His findings were reported publicly at the and the temptation to irrationally as sess blame for this failure has proven too strong for some critics of the in Tenth International Cancer Congress in Houston in 1970 and were published in a leading medical journal in 1971. dustrial health system in this country. As would be expected, the vinyl chlo ride industry itself has been the prime target of this criticism, which has ex tended to speculation that the indus try had previous knowledge of the haz ards of VC and that it purposely with held this information from govern ment officials, its employees, and the general public. This is quite curious, in light of the While some scientific critics questioned the purity of the vinyl chloride used in the experiments and theunrealisticaiiv high levels of exposure employed, tins was, nonetheless, the first time that VC exposure had been linked with cancer. Then what happened''' The federal government did nothing. Or ganized labor did nothing, 'lire wcalled "independent'' scientific com munity did nothing. The news media fact that, as the record dearly demon strates, the majority of the medical re search on VC conducted to date (and essentially ail of it conducted before 1974) was industry sponsored, that it was a member of the industry who made the first tenuous connection be tween VC exposure and angiosarcoma in humans, and that this information was announced publicly. In fact, were it not for the actions taken by industry from 1970 onward, we might still to- dav nm>w m`\t m mulling ..cmii too. eomplelely ignored Ihe story. 'file only group that took action was the industry. Acting independent!-., both the European manufacturers of VC and PVC resin and their Amnfica.'. counterparts (acting through theewm ufacturing Chemists Association.) 'or gan planning sophisticated animal in halation research projects and epi demiological studies of workers who had been exposed. In the United fh lies, both im W u nets -- i ::e anu mu .r'< ai id. Laboratories and the workers sin Ralph L. Harding Jr. is presidtai! of the Society of Go Plastics Iiijiustr)\_ Inc. Tabershaw-Coope were announeedp'iibliely. A com of the research was that the ivm m > V. 'v* r 70001 i x' Crt