Document DGY9GNX1K6D4RZEZg0np6KJya

: th 12902 Tranol on from Dor Spiegel No 50/1975 ' I MEDICINE Dangerous Plastic < ;* A new and deadly occupational diseaso has been discovered by Medical Specialists in Bonn: workers engaged in the production of PVC. risk incurable diseases of the liver. * Pipes and Venetian blinds, curtains and films and whole host of articles in common use are made from PVC, a hard, durable plastic which can bo moulded into almost any product, German producers alone have distributed almost a million tonnes of polyvinyl chloride over the country in the last year. ; PVC has so far been responsible for the death Of as yet unknown numbers of chemical workers. For the production of thiG much desired material, which can be combined in so many different ways with plasticisers, fillers and pigments that it has become one of the leading products of the plastics age within the last twenty years, is apparently very much more dangerous than had previously been assumed. . i . Medical specialists of the Bonn University Clinics have this year diagnosed n "vinyl chloride disease" in at least 40*of the 120 PVC woi'kers in a neighbouring chemical factory. However, the number of cases is probably considerably higher than this. According to preliminary comments made by the doctors this newly discorer "occupational illness" is characterised by a "serious prognosis and a relatively high mortality rate in men of predominantly younger age groups". According to Prof. GUnther Veltman writing in the "Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift" : "Certainly wore than 10% as revealed by our enquiries". " Tlis occupational disease first came to the notice of dermatologist Veltman and Jits team in the form of characteristic changes to the skin, particularly in the fingers. However, they wero soon forced to the conclusion that still worso was to be revealed by this already well-known PVC symptom : vinyl chloride harms olood and blood vossols, bones, nerve6, liver and lungs. As summed up by Veltman i. "A discaso of the system". , This plastics material appa'*ontly places at risk only those individuals actually present when the colourless vinyl chloride gas, obtained from mineral oils, is liquefied under pressure and compressed to form powder in the large reactors iuiown us "autoclaves". This "polymerisation process" is necessary to produce the PVC which is then sold as "Hostalit" (Farbworke Iloechst) or "Vinoflex" (BASF): Products which aro not toxic as far as the end consumer is concerned, unless, in the words of plastics experts, "Plasticisers migrate from them". No cases in which theso toxic substances have been liberated from such materials have indeed been reported for a considerable period of time, . On the other hand, the "closed system" of the autoclaves gives rise to dangcroua leakages. The Bonn Medical Specialists have been investigating "possibilities .. of gas leakages and associated inhalation risks" at numerous points in the production process. VC-gaG escapes when the reactors are discharged and opened at) well as through "leaks in the autoclaves". For many years doctor : have boon ' auure of the toxic nature of the gar. and its narcotic effect, Almos : without exception personnel engaged on the cleaning of autoclaves complain of feeling "dopey", giddiness and headaches. For thiG reason the "maximum allowable concentration" ("MAK") of the VC gas has been repeatedly reduced. Acrording to Veltman, however, "we have so far not been awaro of regular gas cone ;ntration measurements being carried out on production sites." : ' . DTH 000013594 Personnel responsible for cleaning the autoclaves - such as the majority of the diocaGed chemical workers - apparently inhale many times the quantity of the acceptable tolerable dose of the toxic substances. Industrial doctors in America have repeatedly measured gas concentrations of 1,000 ppm * in the neighbourhood of PVC autoclave walls, vihich is ten limes the MAK value. The symptoms suffered by the diseased Bonn workers show that the air in German chemical factories is not very much better. The following changes in bodily organs has frequently been observed after only *l8 months employment : , Enlargement of liver and spleen with lasting destruction to the structure and function of their cells - collective tissues proliferate in the organs. Reduced circulation in the hands due to diseased narrowing of the arterial vessels. * Finger bones gradually deteriorate, andwero almost completely destroyed in cases ol advanced disease. Blood formation and coagulation were affected and breathing was found to become increasingly difficult. :' . The majority of these illness-induced changes are considered non-curablo by reason of the fact that the increase in connective tissues in all vital organs is "irreversible". Specialists in internal diseases accordingly hope at the most for a "defective healing" in diseased livers. The chemical workers are left with a thick-skinned and deformed organ such as that found in chronic alcoholics after many years over-indulgence in alcohol. According to Prof. Voltman, the necessary "consequence" is "compensation for all diseased workers" and the recognition of the illness as an occupational disease. Neither he nor his colleagues have so far ventured to estimate the numbers of the victims of the PVC disease. Basic research into the medical problems of VC is also badly lagging. In the 100 year after the ability of vinyl chloride to polymerise v/as fifrst discovered in 1878 - the doctors in Bonn are now demanding "experimental investigations in animals on the effects of the vinyl chloride with particular reference to skin, bone, lungs, liver and spleen". * PPM : abbreviation for parts per million = parts (by volume) per million : a measurement unit used to indicate the quantity of trace substances eg in a gas mixture. '