Document BvdjzrxeNVGbdn12z3N9bb5RJ

Wilt Industry decries OSHA's For example, we do not know the mecha number of liver cancer cases being 10 nism by which a chemical carcinogen time* thane expected in a similar unex no'detectable level rule as unnecessarily harsh; operates or whether a safe level of ex pected population. He stressed that posure can be set." Much of the testi these etudiea, though preliminety, mony presented at the hearing dealt show that multiple cancer sites are in both labor and ACS with industry's, labor's, and research volved end cencer is increasing over workers' effort to resolve the latter .time in the population. Dr. Peters question. 'egreed with Dr. Selikoff in that he supp rt proposed standard The initial impetus for the vinyl said, "I do not believe we will know the chloride industry came during World full cenrer-eeusing potential of vinyl War II when it was used as a substitute chloride far aeveral years. At this point Mere mentioning of the words vinyl for natural rubber. According to Dr. the only way to assure an end to this chloride to Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials who Irving -1. Selikoff, professor of medicine at City University of New York's ssuerreio.ues hagerd is to eliminate the expo- presided over public hearings on the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, "This The vinyl chloride-PVC industry, in agency's proposed permanent work immediately points to a problem of general, took the opposite view, Harry place standard for the chemical may current vinyl chloride-polyvinyl chlo E. Conners, vice president of Diamond well lead to muttering.* that enough is ride investigations; the industry is a Shamrock Chemical, told the hearings. enough. In nine da\s. the officials lis relatively young one, and the late ef "In our judgment the cases of worker tened to 33 hours of direct testimony fects of toxic exposure have only begun illness recently discovered in industry hy -It panels of witnesses--and many to appear; most of our experience is arc the delayed result of conditions additional hours in question and an si ill ahead of us " He told the hearings that were common many years ago hut swer sessions--and received 89 written that clinical field studies are being are no longer present in today's submissions for the hearing record. conducted that include examinations plants." Dr. Richard W. McBurney, Much of the data presented OSIIA is of more than 1200 vinyl chloride-PVC corporate medical director of Diamond conflicting All this iv. of little loinfort polymerization workers. Although all Shamrock Chemical, pointed out that to the officials as OKHA lias until Oct. the results arc not yet in. he reported "during the early years of PVC produc 5 to come up with its final version of a that studies of 331 current and former tion attention was given to vinyl chlo permanent standard workers at Goodyear's plant in Niagara ride vapors only because of the anes It's likelv that OSIIA niav well pick Falls, N.Y., "demonstrated a signifi thetic qualities and the explosion haz- some middle ground simulant --tougher cant prevalence of liver abnormalities, ard. Since the explosion hazard occurs than that proposed by industry, softer peripheral vascular changes, and lung at upward of 30.000 p.p.m. and the an than that initially proposed h> the abnormalities." esthetic effect at 1000 to dlXKi p.p.m. f'lovcrnmcnt--which, if either labor or Information on deaths from two the vinyl chloride levels in work areas industry is unhappy about it. may well plants, one which produces monomer were undoubtedly quite high." be challenged in the courts anyway. Bnd the other polymer, was presenled Dr. Carl U. Dernehl. associate medi Data presented at the hearings tend by Dr. John M. Peters of the Harvard cal director of Union Carbide, told the ed to coalesce, in effert, into two posi School of Public Health, lie said that hearing of a health survey conducted tions. that of industry and that of Gov- studies on 1G1 deceased white males hy SPI covering 16 plants employing ernmcnt-lahor-AC'.S For instance, a showed "a 507c excess of deaths due to 2372 persons whose current work per spokesman for the Society of the I`las. cancer." There was a "f'U% excess of mits exjiosure to vinyl chloride, plus tics Industry maintained that OSIIAs lung cancer (13 cases with 7.9 expect 471 who had worked with it in the proposed work-place standard--which, ed) and a 3207r excess of brain cancer past. He said that the study identified among other tilings, calls for a no-cle- (five cases with 1.2 expected) with the 1402 men who were exposed to vinyl trctahlc level of vinyl chloride--"is not technologically feasible and. if adopt ed, would shut down the industry." In contrast, Peter Hotnmarito, president of the I'niicd Kuliher Workers, said that tlm "OSIIA pnipo-al comes closer to the ideal standard than any vet pro posed or promulgated for any work place hazard." However, l)r Daniel P Muytl, clttcctor of the office of standards develop SPI's vinyl chloride rules would differ sharply from OSHA's TV-VT?!1'*'-11 I t I A no-detectable level for employee ^ f For polyvinyl chloride resin plants, A i exposure as determined by a sampling La ceiling of 40 p.p.m. of vinyl chloride.'] J and analytical technique capable of dc-.'j I[tthbils. year, s2c5 phlp_.m_. *i.n 1975. rF*o.r vinyl .-.*j } tecting vinyl chloride concentrations of i {chloride plants, a ceiling ot 25 p.p.m. j ` 1 p.p.m. with an accuracy of 1 p.p.m. '<' {this year, 10 p.p.m. in 1975. PVC fabri-'-'i *50%. This would apply to monomer/'j (eeaatting plan!t*s,,wf ould be excluded from31 i polymer, and fabricating operations. I the standard. 1 ment for OSIIA. although emphasizing that the proposed standard is just that--a projmsal --said that "it repre [ Labeling for regulated areas and ' I Labeling should provide those who ' vinyl chloiide-potyvinyl chloride con*'v [need the information with methods for t tainers with the warning to include the (dealing with the problem; it should not sents our best judgment based on the ' words "cancer suspect agent. be a basis for panic because of a dis*; information available on Mav 10. our ! - ''-"I ! ease characterization. 1 present judgment is that vinyl chloride a carcinogenic agent." Dr. Boyd linted out that in protec ting employ res i Use of air-sup|itiod respirators in ' l cases of emergency and when vinyl '! I chloride concentrations rise above dc- j j Use of air-supplied respirators is im'practical except for short period's of Itimc. Air-supplied breathing apparatus troin a carcinogenic matrria], "We are(tcctablc levels. y.v.IVt Lalso should bo allowed. .-.,"-,, \ '! operating in the area of many unknowns. OLI 2X68 f.,iv n** rm t\ loK'iuii at least HI years hu". *( which 416 had a latent jicriod of more than 20 years. Also identified wrre "H7 mrn ex posed continuously to vinyl chloride for more than 10 year*, with lot Wing ex* posed for more thnn 20 year*. Dr. Dernehl xaid, "Examination* of these men have failed to show the existence of ab normal liver function texts in greater proportion than would be found in a control population. There is no ense of angiosarcoma of the liver among these men even though their exposure time is sufficient for the disease to have oc curred and exposures are believed to have been in excess of SO p.p.m." He concluded that "these data fail to sup port the need for an exposure level ns drastic as that proposed in the stan dard" The SP1 survey's findings were sup ported by Diamond Shamrock. Dow Chemical. B. F. Goodrich. Tcnncco Chemicals, and Firestone. All reported that despite extensive surveys of their current and former vinyl chloride-PVG workers, no further cases of or deaths due to liver cancer have been found, other than the 13 previously reported to OSHA. Industry also felt that thr proposed standard was too far-reaching Accord ing to Anton Vittone. president nf B. F. Goodrich Chemical. "The produc tion nf vinvl chloride, its poKmerizatmn into 1'VC resin, and the protesting of I'VC'rr-sm into semifinished or finishi d products is treated in the pro posed standard ns one industrial health problem " However, he contended, "Each is an entirely different "iteration posing its own problems, permitting and requiring different solutions." Of particular concern to many indus try witnesses was the inclusion of l'VC processors and fabricators, such as phonograph record makers, under the proposed standard. Monitoring data on vinyl chloride exposure in processing plants were presented by several wit nesses, including Philip .). Weaver, di rector of industrial affairs for B. F. Goodrich. In a conclusion that agreed with those of other witnesses, he said, "Our data does not support this con cept of inclusion of processor opera tions" under the proposed standard sinre ``we find no detectable levels of vinyl chloride in most of the processing work places." In addition to urging that fabricators and processors not he included under the permanent standard, the Society of the 1'lastics Industry proposed that in vinyl chloride and I 'VO plants there he a stepped reduction in worker expo sure. 'i'llis is in sharp contrast to the American Chemical Society position presented at the hearings ly Hr. Ste phen T. Quigley, head of (he Society's department of chemistry and public af fairs, and Howard It. Fawcett, chair man of the ACS Committee on Chemi cal Safety. ACS, in essence, supports the OSHA proposed standard, asking fiVC fabricators should not be included under the exposure standard, Sfil urges only that the standard be defined as a minimum practical level cnpahlc of de tection by a recommended method rather than as a no-dctectable level. SIM's proposed standard drew sharp criticism from Anthony Mnr.r.occhi, citizenship-legislative director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers In ternational Union. He said. "It will he a tragedy if OSHA adopts the so-called `common denominator kind nf stan dard that SP! sponsored. Under this approach a standard is adopted that everybody can meet. But those plants that can go furl Her arc under no incen tive, at that time, to do anything more." Most companies at the hearing said that although it would be difficult, they could live with SPl's proposed standard, Two companies, however, re ported that twey ore already o|K>r.iting at much lower levels. Dr. V. K. Howe, Dow director of toxicological researrh in health and environmental affairs, said that the company, "is generally operating within nn eight-hour timeweighted average (TWA) concentration of 10 p.p.m.; however, brief malfunc tions and other temporary situations occasionally result in short-term excur sions in excess of 10 pp.in." And Air Products and Chemicals' John T. Barr reported that his company has an eight-hour TWA in the 20- to 25-p.p.m. range for workers in its polymerization building ami even lower levels for those in oilier job locations. Tcnnrco Chemi cals, however, estimated that it would have to spend in excess of $lt) million to reach the exposure levels recom mended by SPI. Vinyl c Idoride-PVC industry wit nesses contended throughout the hear ings that meeting the proposed stan dard was just not technologically feasible, unless workers wore air-sup plied respiratory equipment all the time. However, Calgon Corp., which was moved from 2<>lh to last on the witness list, declared that technology was available to remove vinyl chloride from the air. William Dwelt of I lie company's activated carbon division said that the monomer can readily be adsorbed on activated cBrbon in con centrations ranging from 1 p.p.m. t more than by volume in air. He Mid laboratory results show that Hitft removal of vinyl chloride from air or nitrogen streams is technically possible using dual beds. Earlier in the hearing Tenneco Chemicals testified that it has included carton adsorption to recover the mono mer from two smoll process streams, neither of which enntains air, in plans for its new PVC plant in Pasadena. Tex. However, it pointed out that it considers this activated carbon method to be "wholly impractical" where large volumes of air and small concentra tions of vinyl chloride are involved. Mr. Bommarito expressed the belief that the standard can be met, saying that where "engineering controls may not be applicable, personal protective equipment can be used." He addrd that especially in newer plants the problem is "characterized by the will, not the ability, to do the job." He con cluded that 'The medical {sets are in and the problem is now in the social and political arena." Internationa! U.S. reactor design loses out in U.K. U.S. reactor design h;is lost out in its bid for the next generation nf nuclear power stations in the U.K. The British government has opted instead for the steam-generating heavy-water reactor (SGHWR) system. The immediate plan is to build three twin-rcactor sta tions with an overall capacity of about 4000 Mw. of electricity. The first of these stations should be operating by 1!)R2. The derision, taken by Eric Varlcy. U.K. Secretary of State for Energy, bucks the trend in other countries, where planned nuclear power programs center on U.S. designs for light-water reactor (LWR) systems, cither General Electric's boiling-water reactor (BWR) or Weslinghousc's pressurized-water reactor (PWH), Indeed, at public hear ings before the Energy Resources Sub committee of the House of Commons .Select Committer on Science and Technology last December, both Ar thur Hawkins, chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board, which supplies power to England and Wales, and Sir Arnold Wcin-toi.k, managing director of British General Electric, which has a oO'X stoke in U.K Nation al Nuclear Corp., came out strongly in favor of lAVK's, primarily because the technology is already prosen and ran be fairly quirkly brought into operation without major design and development effort (C&KN, Feb. 18, page 1J). Mr. Varlcy cites a number of reasons for deciding on the SGHWR route. "In the government's judgment, it will pro vide power reliably and we con proceed in rt cm i,,i.. s" mu OLI 2169