Document DDYRKNg61RgZJbvz6Zk64Rx8n

ards on the assumption that lead-free furl wpuld be available state-wide in California by mid-1973. Denied assurances on lead-free fuel (AWN, Dec. 13, p. 5), Ford now says it has lost one year of developmental work and while it will "market some kind of model that year" in California, it can't state now what type of system will be controlling its emis sions. Work on 1975 national standards will be held in abeyance, Ford said, un til some sort of California system is squared away. Company officials now in dicate they will eventually elect to fol low the course already decided upon by General Motors and Chrysler and conduct field tests of prospective 1975 systems using small company or government fleets where access solely to lead-free fuel is more easily controlled. At Ford, blame for the failure to get lead-free fuel in California for the field test falls squarely on the shoulders of the federal EPA. Its reluctance to approve the use of unleaded gas foT 1974 emission certification tests forced Ford to rely on the California state legislature, which has rejected enforcement of lead-free fuel distribution in two successive ses sions. Even were such a law passed in the session starting January, it would be too late for the originally proposed Ford test program, sources there say. * ** TRW, MITSUBISHI JOIN: A joint venture " "" company to market pollution-control equipment has been 'created by TRW and Mitsubishi, sub;cct to Japanese government approval. The new firm, Civiltech Corp., will be head quartered in Tokyo and capitalized in yen equivalent to $1 million. The company's first products will be TRW's charged droplet scrubber (AWN, Oct. 25, p. 8) and an oil combustion burner for industrial and utility applications. The burner is said to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions to 75 parts per million without recircu lation. semmsts woray ovla pcs? *' 'A AT LANDMARK NIEHS FCETING Is the scare over polychlorlneted biphenyls (PCBs) In the environment justified? Nearly one hundred scientists from around the world pothered in North Caroline last week to discuss PCBs under the auspices of the National Institute of environmental Health Sciences, Covering the meeting for AHN wee McGraw-Hill reporter Nil bepkowski, a biochemist by training. The tentative conclusion on the basis of "chaotic" data; PCBs are a poten tially serious and pressing environmental danger. And brickbats were reserved for Mon santo, the major world producer of PCBs, for not detailing its customers. That attitude could apply to other companies producing long-lived chemicals as well. Polychlorinated biphenyls are everywhere. Scientists have detected these ubiquitous and toxic chemicals in rainfall, unaedimented Arctic lakes, snow fields and the ocean; they're in the body fat of most birds, fish, animals* and man; they've killed mink in quantities aa small sa ten parte per million in the body; they've contaminated poultry and have turned up in recycled food packaging materials. Spectacular industrial out breaks of PCB poisoning have occurred in Japan and West Germany, producing horrendous skin eruption in porsons affected by huge doses of thousands of parts per million. They are bad news. How bad was ona reason scientists traveled last week to a rustic North Carolina conference center called Quail Roost. Topics ranged from enzymology to corporate ac countability. And among the many policy problems underscored, this one stood out; Mon santo Co., America's sole manufacturer of PCBs and in the PCB production business since the early 1930't, must relesaa more information on the identities of its customers. The meeting itself was designed to debate scientific rather than policy issues, and summing up the two-day affair was Dr. Norton Nelson, chief of environmental medicine at New York University. Among the top research issues and gaps Nelson underscored: * Shortage of analytical tools for detecting impurities in test samples of PCBs, There are 210 possible variations. But also mixed in with technical-grade samples are triphenyls and several different reaction products. AttN/DecemireT 27, 1971/pagt 5 MQNS 206933 - These complex mixtures point up toxicological problems, too, Which of the hun dreds of possibilities actually cause damage? Nelson held up for praise a paper given by J.G. Vos of the University of Utrecht, Netherlands, that tried to tie pathology to specific chemicals within the mixture. Vos showed, for example, that chlorinated dibentofurana caused edema in test animals, PCBs themselves caused hepatic porphyria, and chlorinated dibentofurens were responsible for liver damage and skin lesions in various test animals, ) * The most advanced biochemical studies of PCB impact on the enzyme system are on the so-called ATP-ases which control the supply of energy to cells. But the details are still skimpy, showing little more than an inhibitory effect, which would be expected anyway. Nevertheless, Nelson said the enzyme approach offers the best technique for understanding the toxicological details of PCB impact on living things. * There are still too many gaps in determining the ecological flow of PCBs in the environment: where PCBs come from, where they go, and where they end up. Needed are better data on PCBs in rainfall and other atmospheric routes that move them all over the world. No one yet knows whether PCBs are transported in particles or in the vapor phase, or whether in water supplies they move as particles or through microorganisms. * Too little is known about the breakdown of PCBs in the environment by light or other physical factors, and what part these products play in toxicity. * Environmental monitoring needs considerable improvement. "It's not clear," said Nelson, "that data are being collected from various forms of the biota in an orderly way. As extension of this kind of analysis occurs, it is going to be inevitable that some general rules of sample selection and placement strategies are going to have to be improved if we're to get a reasonable return." _ * Distribution of PCBs in food "has matured pretty well," Food protection author- ) ities have a good idea where PCBs are found in food. Nelson said, and in some instances where they are coming from. Nelson said he was impressed with the similarities between the U.S. and Swedish patterns of PCB occurrences in foods, ' * The most disturbing thing from PCB research up to now, said Nelson, "is how extraordinarily ubiquitous those materials are and how without any warning we suddenly discover that they are found everywhere we look, from blood plasma to Arctic lakes." * Han is more resistant to PCBs than other species studied. Shrimp is the most sensitive of all, killed by concentrations as little as one part per million. Mink is the most sensitive mammal, showing reproductive damage et less than ten ppm. Nelson said that much more work needs doing on species susceptibility differences and said he couldn't "take much comfort from the Monsanto data" that showed scant toxicity to rats in concentrations ss high si 100 ppm. Studies done elsewhere, Nelson ssid, have turned up some evidence of bladder cancer in rats. "The picture is clearer than it was six months ago but still far from clear. And tha biggest gaps I see are to look for malig nancies much more closely, nil down this disparity between species which stands as a real puzzler, end gross patterns of toxicity." * Nelson also ssid the field would remain chaotic and get nowhere unless researchers agreed to choose up to ten out of the some 210 possible PCB isomers and do thorough toxicological research on each. Until they do, he said, there would be no way to mean ingfully compare data on any type of pathology. But picking out the choice ten for study won't be easy. Last month, after consider \ able pressure from environmentalists and the federal government, Monsanto finally re- ^ leased its production figures: 42,500 tons produced in 1970, 353,000 tons manufactured since 1960. But that dope is not enough to satisfy the researchers. As Nelson put it: "It is inexcusable that chemists still have to run around with test tubes analyzing materials suspected of containing PCBs. There is a public responsibility here which ,AHN/Decwabr 27 1972/oaot 6 HONS 206934 l would require as a first step that there be an open disclosure of sources and use of these hazardous materials." The movement of PCBs through the industrial environment may be easier to trace now, since Monsanto has limited the sale of PCBs to customers using them in such internal, closed environment systems as heat exchangers outside the food industry, transformers and capacitors. Monsanto has also begun a program of calling back to its Sauget, ill., plant for disposal all uaed PCB-containing equipment. But up to a few months ago, PCBs were going into industrial and road paints, hydrau lic fluids, lubricants, cardboard sealants and putties, soil stabiliters and purposes not even Monsanto has imagined. There are studies to trace the environmental flow of PCBs, from onin to end organisms, but the efforts so far are primitive, mainly be cause no one will talk about sources. Many scientists suspect PCB fallout from jet airliners. But the airlines so far haven't 'disclosed whether they are still using PCBs in their lubricants or hydraulic fluids. ' Further pressure related to occupational safety could raise Monsanto's sweat quo tient. Since PCBs are toxic they pose .not only an environmental but an occupational threat at both the manufacturing and usage level. The Health, Education and Welfare Department's Occupational Safety and Health Institute has the authority to step in and order Monsanto to disclose clinical data on workers involved in PCB manufacture. Neither the Council on Environmental Quality nor the Office of Science and Technology has pressed such an effort. CEQ's Terry Davies, co-chairman of the interagency ad hoc PCB committee, says there arc no plans to begin such a study in election-year 1972. "PCBs are not high on tho occupational health priority list," he says. But he indicated the day after the Quail Roost meeting that such a study would be recommended. _ The slowness of the federal government to press Monsanto for easily obtainable health data points up the traditional leadership void still remaining over environmental policies. Lacking a toxic substances act there is no federal agency for concentrating policy decisions--primarily for getting needed information instantly from private enter prise-short of a Presidentially declared national emergency. Decisions thus are made obliquely and seldom get to the heart of a problem. Most of the public turns to the Environmental Protection Agency as the chief spokesman. Most action over PCBs has come so far from the Food and Drug Administration, under its food protection mandate. But FDA has no power to regulate the non-food industries. The major fallout from the Quail Roost meeting from the buttonhole effect: A mammalian toxicologist could debate with a fishery scientist why high-chlorine PCBs aie more toxic to birds than low chlorine PCBs, and why the fish follow the opposite pat tern. Another research policy Issue punctuated was the need for scientists to specify dosages in their toxicity studies. E.P, Lichtenstein of the University of Wisconsin told ANN thet 10 toSO parts per million were the significant concentrations to keep in mind as relevant tohuman health effects. Anything larger was unrealistic. One issue remained totally unanswered at the meeting: Long-term chronic effects of PCBs, That work is just beginning. And it was agreed that the PCB issue won't wither away as has the mercury toxicity scare. Background levels of mercury were just as high 50 years ago as they are today in many areas. Not so with PCBs. They are a man-made chemical and they stay around a long tine. * THE STATES: NEWS IN BRIEF CALIFORNIA: Gov,Ronald Reagan has signed into lew a bill prohibiting the state from doilTg-business in excess of $5,000 with any persons or firms not complying with air end water pollution lews and regulations. COLORADO: The state attorney general's office has ruled that the Air Pollution AWN/DWccmber 27, 197j/p9e 7 MOMS 206935