Document 4agkkjYreLwEyr9JdG1O41n3Q

PROTECTED MATERIAL - MONSANTO INSURANCE COVERAGE LITIGATION U In 1981: Brain cancer probe T, to intensify in chemical and petroleum industries t* to dp >etbe .tan ijickly and i I can lelp you . historical -ployees ce) --nt ;ach report and 'LD chip nee) :es adiation . prepare ilibrated ;sthe Quality time reiosimetry auer total coupon on l" Late in 1978, government and industry investigators uncoveied what appeared to be a high rate of brain cancer in a Texas chemical plant. Soon, more biam $. cancer cases surfaced at a nearby plant. In 1981, health and safety officials will be attempting to 12 define the risk to workers more precisely and pethaps .*4 * discover the cause. 5? JC Us' Cancer is the nation's Number 2 mary intracranial neoplasms [brain Concern over brain cancer in i killer, expected to account for tumors] among the employee co Gulf area first surfaced in Nove 405,000 deaths in 1980 But cancer hort suggested there was no exces I of the brain and nervous system is sive nsk." relatively rare It will kill about In the spnng, Union Carbide re ber 1978, when a Union Carbi employee was informed by his di tor that he had a brain tumor T 9,800 Americans this year, only 2 4 searchers expect to complete a employee remembered that r s & percent of the cancer death total. Brain cancer's rarity, combined with the horror it conjures up, has full-scale historical prospective mortality study which will identify all.Texas City plant workers and coworkers had died in the reci past from brain tumors He call OSHA, and both OSHA a focused national interest on two compare causes of death with na NIOSH investigated ( Texas chemical plants where inves tional and state averages Dr. A quick check by Union Carbi tigators have found 43 brain cancer Michael Utidjian. associate corpo and agency officials of comp.i deaths among workers rate medical director for toxicology death certificates revealed 9 deal S: V- To date, NIOSH and OS HA in and epidemiology, said a final esti from brain tumors A comparison vestigators have discovered 25 mate of excess nsk must wait for company payroll records agau brain cancer deaths at Dow Chemi this study "We are very concerned the cancer registry maintained cal U.S.A's Freeport, Texas plant about the appearance of an excess the M D Anderson Cancer Unit and, about 60 miles away. 18 deaths [of brain tumors] We are not the University of Texas reveal at Union Carbide Corporation's pooh-poohing this or saying the further cases, as did checks of ri Texas City plant At a New York government is wrong We are say ords maintained by Louisiana a $ jT Academy of Sciences workshop on ing that we have to wait for the final Arkansas. ? brain tumors in the chemical indus cohort study to be completed be During examination of the Te* try, held October 27-29. OSHA/ fore. one. we know if there is an death certificates from Brazot NIOSH investigators reported that excess, and, two. we know how Galveston, and Harris countk the 18 deaths at Union Carbide re large the excess might be." Dr agency investigators discovered vealed "a plant-wide excess brain Utidjian said his "gut reaction" is cases of brain cancer at Dow Che cancer risk twice that expected that the study will probably reveal a leal's Freeport plant Local mci among 6.800 white males at the slight excess of brain tumors. began talking of a "brain cam plant since 1941 " In a progress re At presstime, NIOSH and OSHA epidemic." which Dr. Etcyl Bl. port of its Dow Chemical investiga investigators were close to complet Dow vice president for health a tion, agency researchers found an ing a sample-based cohort study at environmental sciences, call excess risk of death due to brain the Dow plant of a 5-percent sample "premature, inaccurate and tru cancer of approximately 2-1/2-fold. of the total of44,000employed since ponsible " However, a case-control study by 1940 In addition, the agencies were rDow officials maintain that t Dow Chemical investigators has planning an in-plant, case-control number of brain cancer cases d found that ''preliminary calcula study in order to try to determine covered at Freeport may actually tions of expected deaths from pri causal factors continued on papi STG 2433922 RSV0034022 PROTECTED ,H atfriai, MONSANTO INSURANCE COVERAGE LITIGATION OCCUHAHCJNAL , l 1*fi0 fewer than would be expected. A company staiement also rioted that "there have been no brain tumor deaths in 1980, 1979, or 1978 Our studies indicate there has been no correlation between any processor process chemical and the brain cancer cases " Union Carbide and government investigators also have no promis ing suspects ai the Texas City plant. At first, investigators had suspected that vinyl chloride, which is used in the plant and which has been shown to cause brain tumors in animal studies, might be the culprit, but 17 of the 18 afflicted employees had had no exposure to vinyl chlonde. "From our point of view, we would m a sense be better off if it was vinyl chlonde because that has already been identified and regu lated as a carcinogen," Dr. Utidjian said. "We are left with the more disturbing anxiety that there may be some as yet unidentified agent in volved " Dr Utidjian said that despite the brain cancer revelation, additional industrial hygiene measures had not been taken "As chemical plants go, we're quite proud of this plant Pro cesses are kept under control Health practices are quite good The reason for this is that part of it is a vinyl chlonde unit, and we've had to live with a very stringent stan dard I've seen the continuous mon itoring records, and we have consis tently been in compliance with that standard. Without any other clues to go on, we didn't feel it was jus tified to tighten up anything else Also, in almost every case of occupationalcarcinogenesis, we're look ing at very long latency periods be tween exposure and development of disease Conditions in the plant today are quite different from what they were in the past." In addition to vinyl chlonde. gov ernment investigators noted at the New York workshop that the Union Carbide plant used nine other "recognized or suspected carcino gens in significant quantities1', ben zene, diethyl sulfate, dioxane, ethylene dichloride, hydrazine, isopropyl oils, tnchloroethane, trichloroethylene, and vinylidene chlonde In addition to the ongoing studies at its Texas City plant. Union Car bide officials are working with NIOSHon a massive histoncal pro spective cohort study of 44,000 present and past workers in the company's three chemical plants and research center m the Kanawha Valley of West Virginia. That study has been under way for over a year, and Dr Utidjian expects it to be completed by late 1982. He ex plained that there had been some reports of health problems in those plants, including a preliminary study which indicated the possibil ity of excesses of four types of cancer: kidney cancer, multiple myeloma (cancer of the bone mar row), liver cancer, and brain cancer Dr. Utidjian said the Kanawha Valley study would be the "largest chemical cohort study ever undertaken." Conflicting results \ At the New York workshop, health and safety officials in the chemical and petroleum industries had cause both for relief and concern as to whether their industries likely were harboring brain cancer problems. Dr Chi-Pang Wen with Gulf Science and Technology' s Medical and Health Res ounces Division reported no increased nsk of brain tumors among over 17,000 employees of a Texas refinery employed between 1935 and 1979. No excess of brain tumors was discovered tn a study of eight oil refineries by Dr. Michael Alderson and Leslie Rushton of the Institute of Cancer Research. However, the study did reveal excesses of esophageal, stomach, intestinal, rectal, and nasal cancers, and melanoma In contrast to these studies, a study of three Texas refineries by Terry Thomas of the National Cancer Institute suggested that workers might be suffering a brain cancer mortality risk twice what would be expected Scientists studying the incidence of brain and other cancers in the chemical and petroleum industries are uniformly cautious about inter preting their data, but it is clear that the circle of investigation will con tinue to widen in these industries in 1981. | | I 1 j i j i j . j j 1 j STG 2433923 Y Y Y Ut pl. cn tri' sir sei pu trii ne us< Pr. na go ] ere Op Iht so le r set op prc Ac NI ter coi m mi ho are to Gu to VE U. Eu ins ing RSV0034023