Document 71jVYdyoeyyrLQ7GrkERnqNZa

ine JoChaiC fBh3TOhio7Wedn2Sttey- hi* Ne w Study Ties Vinyl Chloride ! To Rare Cancer WASHINGTON (AP) -- A medical study has produced new evidence suggesting a high incidence of death from a rare liver cancer among factory employes working with vinyl chloride, a chemical widely used in die plastics industry. A study of vinyt chloride workers at the Goodyear plant ia Niagara Falls, N.Y.i found that three of 24 deaths were doe to the cancer angiosarcoma. BFG25525 Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, director of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, cited the study. He emphasized the critical importance of reducing the amount* of vinyl chloride workers are exposed to. to a `Do detectable level" as proposed by the Labor Department. Selikoff was among dozens of witnesses Tuesday at a hearing on the Labor Department's proposed standards for regulating its use. Representatives of the Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc., a trade association, argued that the medical evidence was too inconclusive to require banting worker exposure to the chemical. They said the proposed regulations were impossible to achieve and would force the industry to dose scores of plants with the loss of as many as 2.2 million' jobs. "The proposed permanent standard is not technologically feasible and. if adopted, would shut down the industry," waned Anton Vittone, president of the B. F. Goodrich Chemical Co. Vittone. representing the * trade association, proposed in prepared testimony a different standard -- reducing worker exposure to vinyl chloride from SO parts per million of air now in force to 10 parts per million, effective October 1977. But Selikoff argued that "the only prudent course for the prevention of angiosarcoma ... is to provide a environment wiut detectable levels of chloride." work no vinyl