Document 99jVq1zNDonmrvev1Mkz9KnxV

The Chemical World This Week CANCER DEATHS AMONG PVC WORKERS CAUSE CONCERN Long-existing concern over possible health hazards to workers in firms making polyvinyl chloride and vinyl chloride intensified dramati cally last week with a disclosure that indicates there may well be a serious occupational disease prob lem--one involving cancer. B. F. Goodrich Co. voluntarily revealed to federal and state offi cials that since 1971 three blue-col lar workers at its PVC resins plant at Louisville, Ky., have died from a very rare form of liver cancer, two in 1973 and one in 1971. The can cer--angiosarcoma--is so rare that federal authorities estimate that deaths throughout the U.S. from this cause total only 21 per year. Alerted to the deaths, federal ex perts and safety inspectors rushed within 48 hours to the plant. Dr. Marcus M. Key, director of the Na tional Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, says that his agency will step up its effort to de termine the extent of the disease in the U.S. and in foreign countries with similar manufacturing pro cesses. NIOSH plans to develop, on a crash basis, criteria for stringent work practices for use in the polyvi nyl chloride process. An agency spokesman tells C&EN the criteria might be ready in several weeks. The deaths were among BFG employees who worked in some phase of the PVC polymerization operation, but not in drying, fin ishing, or other areas. They had worked for BFG for 15 to 28 years. Dr. Maurice N. Johnson, BFG's director of environmental health, stresses that the causes of death are subject to verification and that the company is probing to see whether they are occupationally linked. Neither company officials nor federal experts are certain now what the suspect carcinogen may be, if the deaths are due to job ex posure. And apparently there is no violation of the federal standard for exposure to vinyl chloride vapors of 500 p.p.m. of vinyl chloride on a time-weighted-average basis. BFG says maximum exposures in its plants have ranged from 50 to 100 p.p.m., with possibly higher expo sures but not for long periods. Dow Chemical, a major vinyl chloride maker, urged use of a 50p.p.m. exposure level in the litera ture in 1961 and adopted it as a company standard some 15 years ago. Regular physical examinations for Dow workers support the safety of this level, says Dr. Etcyl H. Blair, health and environmental re search director, But last summer Dow warned all of its U.S. vinyl workers of a "potential problem," based upon results of an Italian re search study that found tumors in rats administered 30,000 p.p.m. of vinyl chloride. To its credit, BFG's voluntary alert is the first such notice ever made to NIOSH by a firm for a se rious health problem. But the ensu ing probe seems likely to shake op erators of the 36 existing PVC resin plants in the U.S. as well as anoth er 14 vinyl chloride plants. Lift price curbs on plastics, SPI urges Citing high overseas prices luring plastic resin supplies from the U.S. market, the Society of the Plastics Industry has petitioned the Cost of Living Council to exempt petro chemical feedstocks, plastic resins, and fabricated plastic products from Phase IV price controls. The move is a result, according to SPI president Ralph L. Harding, Jr., of "raw material shortages caused by the world energy crisis and artificial domestic shortages attributable to Phase IV price regu lations." Mr. Harding says domes tic price limits have held resin and Harding: to end artificial shortages feedstock prices at "abnormally low levels," leading producers to in crease exports of these products to more lucrative foreign markets. The SPI position lines up with that taken by fertilizer makers in their successful bid to have fertiliz er industry wage and price controls lifted to ensure adequate supplies for the U.S. market (C&EN, Nov. 5, 1973, page 2). The fertilizer in dustry victory, however, may be in trouble. The Cost of Living Council is considering placing some new form of price control on the indus try in response to what it believes to be excessive price hikes on cer tain fertilizer products. In arguing its case to CLC, SPI claims that polyethylene sells for up to 45 cents a pound abroad, compared with a domestic price of about 18 cents a pound, and poly styrene that lists for about 16 cents a pound in the U.S. sells in foreign markets for up to 80 cents a pound. The petition also says that petro chemical feedstocks such as ethyl ene and benzene sell on foreign markets for as much as four times their domestic price. Thus, SPI claims, "It is not difficult to see how economic conditions have dic tated significant sales of plastics resins and petrochemical feedstocks abroad," However, two large petro chemical and resin makers, Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, pre viously contacted by C&EN, deny that their exports of these products increased significantly in 1973. To add ammunition to its argu ment, SPI surveyed plastics proces sors in the U.S. to assess the effect of resin shortages on production and employment. According to the poll, 73 of the 159 respondents have cut back their operations by an av erage of 23%, and 52 have laid off an average of 25 employees each. Water quality laws need fleshing out "Believe it or not, industry wants Public Law 92-500 to work," Dr. Monte C. Throdahl, Monsanto's vice president for technology, told government and industry represen tatives at a conference on industry and clean water, sponsored by Mid west Research Institute last week in Kansas City, Mo. As it stands, he added, the 1972 Water Quality Act appears to be a skeleton, not an en forceable system. 6 C&EN Jan. 28. 1974 000006^03 vvc Letters Federal R&D funding SIR: It was with interest tha* I read the let ter from Prof. Mueller of the chemistry de partment of Purdue University (C&EN, Nov. 5, 1973, pages 36 and 34) concerning fed eral R&D funding. I share his bewilderment over such phrases as "new highs in basic research support from federal funds." If, indeed, these new amounts of money are being supplied, little if any is going into what most academic chemists would call basic research. I do not know if Mueller was suggesting a poll, but we as a depart ment have experienced at least the 30% decrease in funding he mentioned in the time period 1967-72. One source of the gloom that was men tioned in Mueller's letter appears to be some of the new funding policies of the Chemistry Section of the NSF. This is a traditional source of a significant portion of the basic research funds of chemistry de partments. The situation has three impor tant facets: 1. The budget of the Chemistry Section has come no place close to in creasing at a rate even matching the infla tion. 2. M. Kent Wilson reported at a meet ing at the recent national ACS meeting in Chicago that because the funds were be coming more scarce, it was becoming necessary to make fewer grants of larger amounts of money so that at least a few scientists could be supported at a level so that they could accomplish something. 3. Recent renegotiations of the overhead lev els have further decreased the fraction of the meager funds that can be used scien tifically. it seems likely that at least for a while all but a few chemists will find cheap basic research the only possible kind! G. A. Gallup Professor of Chemistry. University of Ne braska. Lincoln. Neb. Tis an Indian freighter SIR: I was shocked to see in your Dec. 24, 1973, issue (page 12) that you illustrated your article entitled "U.S. trade balance will move into black' with a photograph of a ship bearing a large swastika emblem on its bow (or stern). Would you please explain the origin of this picture and why it was chosen to illus trate this article? David Gutman Assoc/afe Professor. Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, III. Editor's note: The ship in question is an In dian freighter, registered in Bombay. It is loading fertilizer. Energy overreaction? SIR: I want to congratulate Dr. Kenyon for his timely editorial (C&EN, Dec. 10, 1973) warning about the danger of overreacting to the energy crisis. For the sake of the new members and others with short mem ory, I would like to point out that he wrote almost 10 years ago (C&EN, June 8, 1964) another editorial discussing the dangers of the overproduction of scientists. Unfortu nately his prophetic voice was unheeded at that time or dismissed as an unrealistic, pessimistic view. Dr. Kenyon very modestly has refrained from saying, "I told you so." Being a scientist does not make anyone infallible; therefore, anyone can make a mistake. But while the first mistake can be understood and forgiven, to do the same thing all over again cannot be tolerated. It would be either stupidity or a deliberate crime; neither of them has any place in our institutions dealing with the education of future scientists. We feel directly the ener gy shortage, but this should not create hys teria (real or pseudo) in the logical atmo sphere of academic circles. It must not be used as a cover for an uncontrolled in crease in the production of scientific man power such as we experienced in the sixties. Such action would be irresponsible and would result in an almost catastrophic backlash against our higher educational system. Our educators should be good enough scientists to know how to draw the correct conclusion from previous unsuccessful ex periments. I have faith in their improved vi sion to read the handwriting on the wall. To use Dr. Kenyon's symbolism about the al coholic: Someone on the wagon should know that falling off from it could be dan gerous. One could be crushed under the wheels! Attila E. Pavlath Councilor, ACS California Section Instrument care SIR: In response to Rebecca L. Rawls' ar ticle. "Money pinch tightens university op erations" (C&EN, Dec. 24, 1973. page 30). there is a method that chemistry depart ments could use to save money, and in ad dition give their faculty and students a broader educational experience. There is a growing awareness that to day's chemist needs more "practical expe rience" in addition to book learning. One area that is sorely lacking is instrument care and repair. If a person has enough intelligence to obtain a degree in the physical sciences, certainly that person should be able to learn enough electrical horse sense to look after simple chemical instrumentation. Thus, a chemistry department might offer a course entitled, "Electrical Horse Sense." All interested personnel, broken instruments, and people with electrical horse sense would gather in one room and look into the logic and practice of simple repairs. This plan would cut repair bills, and might make purchases of new instruments less frequent. In the long run, science dol lars might go further. Brian D. Warner Department of Chemistry. Washington State University. Pullman. Wash. Correction SIR: This letter is in regard to your article entitled "Who will produce enriched urani um?" (C&EN, Dec. 3, 1973, page 8). On the first page of that article there is a pho tograph titled "Paducah, Ky., facility . . the title is unfortunately incorrect. The photo is in fact an aerial view of Union Carbide's K-25 plant in Oak Ridge. Tenn. It is correct that the facility is used in producing enriched isotopes by gaseous diffusion. Richard C. Dickinson Research Fellow of the Robert Welch Foundation. Arlington. Tex. Customtailored to your re quirements. Put Davison's experience and flexibility to work on your catalyst problems. Who's better equipped to help you than the largest catalyst producer in the world? Here at Davison you'll find the capability to design a catalyst suited to your specific needs --whether you're interested in oxidation, dehydration, hydrogenation, polymerization, alkylation, or other function involving heterogeneous catalysis. You'll also find the resources to develop your catalyst for industrial use, and to supply quantities for laboratory evaluation or commercial reactor operation. So bring your catalyst ques tions to the leader. Bring them to Davison. For more infor mation. call (301) 727-3900 Adsorbents * Catalysts * Rare Earths Pigments & Additives Ozone & Oxygen Generators DAVISON CHEMICAL Charles and Baltimore Sts Baltimore. Md. 21203 VVC 000006604 Jan. 28, 1974 C&EN 5