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FILE N A M E : N e w York State & NY Tim es (N Y) D A TE: 1974 O ct 27 DOC#: NY070 D O C U M E N T D ESCRIPTION: N YT A rticle - The Hidden Plague By Alan Anderson Jr. New York Times (1857-Currentfile); Oct 27,1974; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851 - 2002) pg. 272 Even the families of some workers are endangered . by occupational diseases. The hidden plague By Ulan Anderson Jr.______ Im agine th is in y o u r history books: In October, 1974. am id m uch fanfare, a revolu tionary process burst upon the typewriter industry when a research engineer for the Teletouch Corpo ration finally invented the ribbonless typewriter. He found th a t type blocks made of the metal pantalonium could `bum" an imprint into specially treated paper, obviating the need for ribbons and cutting manufacturing costs by S per cen t.-T he following spring, a mysterious epidemic arose throughout the country, characterized by shortness of breath, chest pains. Insomnia, dizziness, and, in seven to 0 days, pulmonary failure and death. Amid the chaos, epidemiologists--medical sleuths who trace the origin o f disease outbreaks--quickly found th a t the victim s w ere ail typists, secretaries, journalists and oth ers who had used the new type _________ . . . _________ w riters. Investigating th e chem istry of the typing in Paterson, N. was tiW process, they discovered th a t each tim e a letter w as seared onto paper, traces o f a volatile petro chemical were released into a ir. Tests dem onstrated th a t th is chemical caused irreversible lung changes in laboratory animals after a lag time of several w eeks, and in hum ans after several m onths. A na tional furor ensued, during which the officers of the typewriter company went to fail and the in ventor himself was kept in protective seclusion. After a trial th a t dragged on for tw o years, th e officers were all acquitted: No laws could be found regulating nonconsumable chem icals. U nfortunately, th ere is a t lea st as much reality as fantasy in this tale. The reality is th at more than 100.000 persons die annually o f occupational dis eases, according to the President's R eport on O ccupational S afety and H ealth' of 1972, and 390.000 m ote c o n tract disabling occupational d is eases. The fan tasy is th a t such statistics m ake A lan Anderson Jr. is a freelance writer who spe cializes in scientific and medical subjects. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -> any impression on the public. The carnage occurs in "slow m otion." hidden behind the w alls of the several million workplaces of this country's 89 million workers. Most chronic diseases--especially cancer--do not become apparent for m any years after first exposure. The victim s often die a t home, long after becoming too sick to work; when death comes, it does not appear to be job-related. "It's like a m ajor war," notes Nobel-winning biologist George W ald. "The casualties, however, aren't fighting, but just trying to make a living." The enemies are largely unidentified, hidden among the 50,000 o r so chemicals currently in use by industry. The Government regulates the use of only about 450 which have, in haphazard fash ion, proved dangerous to man. Even fo r this small group, which include asbestos, uranium , m ercury and other by-now obvious health threats, there is no rational system for setting maximum exposure levels. Each year another 3,000 new substances are introduced, whose effect upon hum ans is un tested. Belatedly, and often by accident, epidemiol ogists are discovering th at many of them cause cancer, both in experimental anim als and in hu mans. The World' H ealth Organization estim ates th at a t least 75 to 85 per cent of all cancers are triggered by environmental agents such as indus trial chemicals. Since W orld W ar H, the variety of these agents has increased dram atically in w hat might be considered a second industrial revolu tion based hugely upon a bewildering variety of plastics and other petroleum-based chemicals. These chemicals, when they cause cancer, typi cally require 20 to 40 years to produce tum or growth. Significantly, industrialized nations such as the United States are now passing the 20-year m ark from the beginning of the g reat plastics boom of the nineteen-fifties. This correlation was brought home in frightening fashion earlier this year by the revelation th at vinyl chloride, a simple petrochemical byproduct used to make the plastic polyvinyl chloride, is carcinogenic, or cancer-caus ing. Breathing air contam inated with sm all amounts of vinyl chloride (VC) causes, after a long latency period, an extremely rare form of liver cancer which is invariably fatal. "VC was the first of the large-scale chemical m aterials th at were In troduced by the petrochem ical industry after the w ar," says Dr. Irving Selikoff of the ML Sinai College of Medicine in New York. "Because of the long latency period o f occupational cancers, we are ju st seeing the first deaths to be caused by VC. There are going to be m any m ore." Selikoff, who has earned an international repu tation for his role in exploring and publicizing the carcinogenic nature of asbestos, has rather sud denly found himself a t the center of a dozen or so occupational-disease investigations of unprece dented scale. He has created, under th e title of the Environmental Sciences Laboratory, a medical empire of sorts, centered around his own consider able reputation and a brilliant team of occupational epidemiologists. In a field traditionally short on both funds ami prestige, Selikoff has secured mil lions of dollars in Federal grants and the open adm iration of other health researchers. " He's a t the center of the action," says a colleague. He both pushes and pulls his team w ith the relentless energy of a man confronting a m ountain of un finished business. "We have a backlog o f unin vestigated health th reats from as fa r back as the nineteen-twenties," says the 59-year-old Selikoff. "Which do we take first--the old problems like coal-mine dust and lead, o r the new chemicals like vinyl chloride? We hardly know where to begin." In both the diversity of its talen t and sophistica tion of its technology, the lab itself is unique in the United States, and probably in the world (the only comparable facility is the Pneumoconiosis Re search Unit of G reat Britain's Medical Research Council). SeUkoffs team includes six clinical phy sicians, six field epidemiologists, one industrial hygienist, two pulmonary physiologists and IS m ineralogists. The mineralogy tab, headed by Dr. Arthur Langer, is crucial to SelikofPs operation: Pinpointing the source of m ineral-health threats. Asbestos miner His work and the smoking hahit are fibefy tn fend to lung cancer. such as asbestos and talc, is posable only after precise identification of crystal fibers found in the lungs. Langeris analysis of complex crystals m ay be called fo r as legal evidence, as in th e recent trial involving a M innesota iron refinery- accused of dumping asbestos fibers into Lake Superior. A typical Selikoff investigation begins w ith a suggestion of danger--often from a labor leader concerned about working conditions, or from ani mal studies w ith a certain chem ical The next step is to find a high-risk group th at has been ex posed to the threat--fo r example- members of a union local who worked w ith vinyl chloride be tween 25 and 20 years ago. If the investigators are able to obtain lists of names, they then attem pt a "sample trace," trying to find 10 per cent of toe working group. If this proves reasonably easy, they follow w ith "a little P. H ," as a Selikoff investigator puts it, explaining to workers why they m ust conduct the tedious interrogations, physical exams and pulmonary tests. Then a physician and a field epidemiologist are assigned to toe ease, and the study branches into two parts: (1) a m ortality sur vey to determ ine the cause of death of those who have died, and (2) a clinical study to examine all those still alive. The process commonly takes sev eral years, and follow-up studies continue indefi nitely. The procedure was dramatically accelerated in the c m of vinyl chloride, both because It threatens so many thousands o f workers and because toe evidence against it burst so suddenly into the open. We had to drop thing we were doing when vinyl chloride hit," re called a bleary-eyed member of Selikoffs team a few m onths ago. Rarely has a case been proven so quickly and precisely in the notoriously imprecise field of epidemiology. On Jan. 22, 1974, the B. F. Goodrich Chemical Company broke the news that, since September, 1971, three of its employes in a vinyl-chloride plant in Louisville, Ky., had died of angiosarcoma of the liver. For such a tare disease --in 30,000 consecutive an- (Continued on Page23) every Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Continued from Page 21 tnpsies a t Bronx Veterans Ad m inistration Hospital no cases appeared--this was a mlniepidemic. In a crisis atm osphere, the Department of Labor held hearings Feb. 15 and heard more bad news from Dr. Cesare M altoni, director of the Institute of Oncology a t the University of Bologna. Mal toni, for more than a year, had been inducing cancer in rodents by using tow levels of vinyl chloride gas--250 p arts per million, lower than th at found in some working condi tions. Since those hearings, angiosarcoma has been in duced by only 50 p.p.m., and lower dosages are being tried. "It is obvious." says Selikoff, "th at no threshold yet m asts." The National Insti tute for Occupational Safety and H ealth (N .t.O .SJi.) has been keeping tabs on VC which now stand a t 27. Re corded cases are growing not only in number but also in land. At first, all deaths w ere detected am or the &500 workers directly involved in the m anufacture of the vinyl chloride gas o r its conversion into plastic resin, polyvinyl chloride (PVC). More recently, however, deaths have been reported further along the line Materials used in fireproofing such clothing as children's pajamas (often required by law) may combine with urine and prespiration to give off cancer-causing fumes. among workers who make some of the thousands of de rivative consum er products. One angiosarcoma victim bad loaded VC in pressurized cans for use as a spray propellant; another made PVC dictabelts; still another wrapped electri cal w ires in PVC. Six men who made plastic floor tiles in Germany have precursor symptoms o f angiosarcoma. A woman in Niagara Falls who, since the end of W orld W ar Q, lived four blocks down wind of a PVC .p lan t has died o f a liver cancer. Many other plants exude measur deaabtlhesa, m ounts of VC, and the Environmental Protection Ad m inistration is trying to trace the 200 million pounds of gas th at escape into the atm os phere each year. Further evi dence has im plicated VC in other cancers and in birth m alform ations. "I suspect," said J. William Uoyd o f N.I.O.S.H, "th at this is going to be the occupational disease of the century." W ere vinyl chloride a more exotic chemical whose use could easily be lim ited, the problem m ight be manageable. Unfortunately, VC has, until recently, been used widely as an aerosol propellant for hair sprays, garden pesticides and other sprays; and PVC is the second m ost widely used plas tic (after polyethylene) in the country, fashioned into food wrappers, blood bags, w ater pipes, toys, dentures, shower curtains, phonograph records, furniture coverings and thou sands of other products. In 1973, some 5.3 billion pounds of VC gas were produced, al m ost all fo r conversion to plastic. "The importance of PVC production" according to Albert C. Clark of the Manu facturing Chemists Associa tion, "is measured by the al m ost universal dependence of nearly every branch of indus trial and commercial activity upon products and compo nents fabricated from this plastic." The most disturbing aspect of the VC scandal is that the chemical has tradi tionally been regarded as in ert and innocuous--and there is no regulatory mechanism to test this false assumption. Another unusual aspect of the trial and conviction of vinyl chloride is that, as in the case of the fictitious typ ing ingredient, the prosecution had an open-and-shut case against i t In epidemiology, causes and effects easily blend invisibly into the forest of public-health statistics. Had VC caused a m ore common disease, such as lung cancer, it might never have been "caught" "It is extremely dif ficult to prove anything in this field," says Dr. Selikoff. "We suspected th at asbestos causes lung cancer for 30 years before we were able to prove it w ith laboratory ani mals. We still are not sure how cigarette smoke produces cancer. We think it Is benzapyrene, but the average roof ing w orker inhales as much benzapyrene from ta r fumes as m ay be obtained by smok ing about 700 cigarettes a day. You would think they would be foiling off the roofs with lung cancer, but they're n o t Every problem has to be done separately here--there are no shortcuts and no assumptions. The social consequences are too im portant to allow any Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. assumptions. There is no sub stitute for shoe-leather epi demiology." Shoe-leather epidemiology? 1 had heard the term around the lab and Selikoff suggested I ask his colleague Dr. Henry Anderson w hat it m eant Anderson, soft-spoken and boyish in appearance, has been involved in the complex studies both asbestos and VC "You can't sta rt w ith a group of people and w ait for them to g et sick," he began. "In the case of both angio sarcoma of the liver and me sothelioma of the lung!, caused by asbestos, it usually takes 20 or 30 o r even 40 years to develop cancer. Un less you are willing to w ait 20 or 30 years, and we aren't the next best course is to pick a group th at worked a t a par ticular job 20 or 30 years in the past--and `follow' them to tin p resent We call this a cohort---a group th at m arches together through time. "Unfortunately for us, a cohort doesn't m arch in lock step. som e quit th e occupa tion, some move away, some die. That's where the shoeleather comes in. If our study is to be valid, we w ant to And all of those people--o r 95 per em it anyway. The Pat erson study is a good example of this." 1 had read about the Pater- koff calls it shoe-leather epi demiology. A t the Paterson asbestos plant, a lo t of the w orkers w ere blacks from Co lumbia and Camden. S. C., m any of them related. But to find them , you bad to know th eir `stre et' nam es. If you go asking about George Sm ith, you m ay get a few guesses; if you ask fo r Streaky, you're m ore likely to g et him right . away. . . . If som eone limps o r squints o r has three eyes, it m akes it easier to find him, of course, Butyou'd be am azed a t how m any lo st people w e get in the end. W hen I read stories in the paper about someone looking fo r a lo st sis te r from Czechoslovakia, I get tem pted to try to find her. I know I could do it in a m in u te, b u t I ju st don't have any spare m inutes." A nother seasoned tracer, Mrs. Sylvia Blustein: "Every km g-fm tions monitored at Or. Irving Setikoff's laboratory. trace is done differently; Fm tracing 900 men w ho b u ilt th e son case, often cited as a classic model of epidemiologi w ork force w ith a nonmobile thind tube of the Lincoln population. W hat we would TUnnel [including m ovie ac cal sleuthing. Several years ago, Dr. Seiikoff studied the m ortality experience of 933 men who had worked between 1941 and 1945 a t the Union Asbestos Rubber com pany (U.N.A.R.C.O.) in Paterson, N J.. com paring Jheir health histories betw een 1960 and 1971 w ith standard m ortality tables. During th a t period, 47 deaths would have been ex pected; instead, there were 105. Two o r three deaths from lung cancer would have been expected; there w ere 25. D eaths from cancer of the stom ach, colon and rectum were three tim es th e expected figures. . "We're extending this study," Dr. Anderson con tinued, "to include others who seem to be a t risk. For example, we have found th at even th e fam ilies o f asbestos w orkers are endangered by dust brought home on the w orkers' clothing, hair o r car. We've examined the fam ilies at 210 of these men, and found th a t 38.4 per cent of the immediate fam ily mem bers have abnorm al X -rays com patible w ith asbestosis. This is quite high and repre sents a big problem. Now we are moving o u t into the neighborhood around the Pat erson plant to see w hat effect the airborne fibers have on the nonworidng public. The problem is like a pyramid: We move from the apex, which is the highest exposure group, downw ard to those who receive low er exposure. W hen w e stop finding deaths, w e stop moving downward. "The ideal cohort," Dr. Anderson w ent on, "is a stable really like is a group of work ers who stay in one job fo r 35 years and then retire jn th eir home town on a pension. to r W arren B eatty, b u t he's easy to find]. Caisson w orkers, o r sandhogs, as they're called, get bone diseases from the More commonly, there is a com pressed a ir and silico lot of m ovem ent W orkers . sis from breathing rock p arti typically try a job for six cles. I found one o f diem m onths and then disappear. through a letter he'd sent Then we have to track them from Vienna asking th e post down, starting only w ith ah m aster in Livingston M anor, address th a t m ay b e 20 y e an N.Y., w here he had lived, fo r out o f date. money, and saying he w as "Tracing these people is moving to A rgentina. W ell, kind o f like doing a crossw ord th p o stm aster told me about puzzle. Each person you find it, and I found d ie man's gives you an ex tra chance of name in an A rgentine phone finding someone else. H ell book a t th e New Y ork Public say. `Oh, yeah, Joe Doe, he's Library. Everyone w as very up a t the penitentiary,* or. helpful on th a t case. The only T ie got m arried and went to uncooperative group is the C anada.' W e go to neighbor Social Security Adm inistra hood bars and grocery stores tion. They have a sm all staff and barber shops. W e also and say tney c a n 't be both use pension lists, die police, ered. If they would help us, the post office, the City Di we'd save a lo t o f tim e and rectory, th e Phonebook, house money. Tm telling you, Pd al guides, th e gossip page of old m ost be w illing to have an a f union newspapers. If we g et fa ir w ith th e head o f it If desperate, we sometimes have th at would helpl" to resu lt to quasi-legai Seiikoff g o t into th is fast- sources such as d ie M otor moving business--h is offices, Vehicle bureaus, police rec w ithout w alls o r doors, re ords o r Social Security lists. sem ble a newsroom w here the You ready should talk to some a ir crackles w ith tip s on fsst- of o u r tracers about this." breaking epidem ics and d u e s for th e tracers--through his The next day I caildd expertise in thoracic diseases. on Mrs. Shirley A native New Yorker, h e grad Levine, a sm iling, uated from Columbia Univer energetic form er sity and earned his M.D. a t newspaperwoman whRo oyhaal sColleges, Scotland. He been tracking down asbestos interned a t Newark Beth Is w orkers in Paterson since rael H ospital and first cam e SelScoff set up a field to suspect th e insidious nature office there six years ago. of occupational diseases when H er knowledge of the area; som e of his chest patients in acquired during her reporting Paterson, w here he h as been days, has proven invaluable. associated w ith B am ert Me "A lo t o f this w ork is literally m orial H ospital since 1947, knocking on doors," said Mrs. showed an alarm ing incidence Levine. "T hat's why Dr. Seli- o f asbestosis, long cancer, Reproduced with permission ot the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. gastrointestinal cancer and m esotheliom a. He knew th at m any of these patients were asbestos w orkers and, sus pecting th e d ark significance of th is coincidence, he de cided to keep in touch w ith 17 o f them as they "m arched together through tim e." To day, IS o f them a re dead, ait b u t one from som e form of cancer. The occupational link became m ore obvious w ith tim e; and through th e nine teen-sixties, Selikoff. having failed to en list th e support of industry, began turning m ore and m ore to labor lead ers in carrying out h is m ission of building and "follow ing" cohorts of w orkers. A fter a slow sta rt, labor leaders began to realize the extent of such industrial m en aces a s asbestos, and to so licit th e help of independent health researchers. Today, S elikoffs group is cooperat ing w ith th e unions of firem en (who breath toxiefum es given off b y burning plastics), paint ers (w ho breathe a variety of toxic solvents and fungicides), roofers (who breathe benzo pyrene, a potent carcinogen in anim als), printing pressm en (who breathe such solvents as benzene, know n to cause leu kem ia in m an), tex tile w ork ers (who g et brow n lung, or byssinosis, from inhaling cot ton dust), sandblasters (who breathe rock particles which cause silicosis), typographers (who breathe lead and other trace m etals), dry-w all tapers and floor-tile w orkers (who breathe asbestos), and so on. The M t. Sinai team is con tinuing to trace several co h o rts of asbestos and vinyl chloride w orkers, moving "down the pyram id" from pri m ary w orkers to . those who fashion consum er products to th e consum ers them selves. M oving dow n th e pyram id in th is w ay takes tim e, and there is as y et little hard inform ation on th reats to con sum ers. Vinyl chloride has been used fo r years as a aerosol propellant fo r such products a s h air spray. Insec ticides and room deodorants. One of the m ost w orrisom e discoveries is th at toxic levels of th e gas can accum ulate in doors a fte r less th an a m in u te's spray. Equally ominous are the 3,000 o r so products in which asbestos is used, from fire-proofed clothing to, until recently, papier raftcM used by schoolchildren. O ther m aterials used in fireproofing clothing such as children's pa jam as (often required by taw ) m ay combine w ith urine, per spiration o r other acids to give o ff carcinogenic fumes. Talc, composed o f harm ful silica particles, is used w idely -- and indiscrim inately -- in talcum pow der an d abrasive soaps. Compounds responsible fo r "perm anent press" cloth, such as organophosphates and m ercury, a re highly toxic if released. W hen furniture padded w ith foam rubber 'urethane) is burned by a dropped cigarette o r another heat source, it gives off poisonous hydrogen-chloride fum es and phosgene, a nerve gas used In W orld W ar 1. The m ost recent health m enace to emerge-- and it is em erging farth er down the pyram id th an eith er asbestos o r VC did a t first--is Tibrous glass. F irst Introduced in 1936 and best-know n under the trad e nam e Fiberglas, fibrous glass has traditionally been considered biologically in nocuous. D uring th e postw ar chem ical boom, w hen the stu ff found alm ost universal application a s insulating ma terial and w as also woven in to fire-proofed cloth, th e fibers w ere huge enough (about three m icrons, o r m illionths of a m eter, in diam eter) to he trapped by the upper respira to ry tr a c t Then, in th e nine teen-sixties, industry realized th a t insulating efficiency of fibrous glass rises w ith the num ber o f dead-air spaces betw een fibers and, adopting a "sm aller is 'b e tte r" philo sophy, reduced fib er diam e te rs to th e one-tenth m icron range. These m icrofibers elude th e body's o u ter defenses, lodging deep in th e lungs. As the dangers o f asbestos becam e known, fibrous glass, thought to be harm less, began to be used in its stead, espe cially to insulate m etal a ir ducts in offices, schools and homes. Industry found it cheapest to sp ray th e insides of such ducts, before they w ere hung, and even to make en tire ducts o u t o f fibrous glass. W hen such ducts are damaged and, as they age, sm all num bers of fibers do escape in to hum an environ m ents. - "Early in th e nineteenseventies," say s Dr. W illiam Nicholson, a senior member o f SeUkofPs group, "w orkers a t the N ational C ancer In stitu te took a v ariety o f these fibers an d im planted them in the pleural surfaces of ra t lungs; o th er researchers in Germ any did the sam e thing w ith th e peritoneal m em brane that encloses the lung. Both groups showed th a t any fibers --regardless of th eir chem ical, nature--a re carcinogenic in anim als. Any fibers! So far, in- ' d u stry 's response to th e th reat has been to ignore it b y say- Reproducedwithpermission ofthecopyn^ttowner Furtherreproductionprohibitedvwthoutpermission. I ing there is no dem onstrated d u stry is changing," says health hazard. Of course, Selikoff, "b u t there are still these sm all fibers have only som e bad acto rs around." He j been in use for about 10 years, is being diplom atic. "One of and on the basis of our ex o u r biggest problem s," says perience w ith occupational H enry Anderson, "is th a t the cancers, we would n o t expect plants won't le t us see their any disease to have appeared h ealth records. Industry w ill yet. Even w ith asbestos, lung say th e records are private scarring d o esn't show up for o r they have disappeared, and a t least 10 years." w e have to rely upon the If supposedly in ert sub stances such as vinyl chloride, asbestos and fibrous glass can cause cancer, w hat is the effect of w orking in an atm os phere laden w ith chem icals __iuiow n to be highly reactive and volatile? Some oil refin eries, fo r exam ple, tu rn out m ore than 5,000 petrochem leal products, many o f which I find th eir w ay into humans. "In general," says Selikoff w ith a shake of the finger, "chem icals are used in indus try because they are chem ical ly active. This m eans they tend to be biologically active as w ell. A nything th a t reacts w ith our lungs isn 't going to do us any good." unions fo r alm ost ail of our inform ation." The b est--o r w orst--recent exam ple of industry's attitu d e h as been th e decision by the Pittsburgh-C om ing Corpora tion to shut a polluting as bestos plant in Tyler, Tex., ra th e r th an clean it up -- a sto ry relentlessly docum ented in Paul Brodeur's book "Ex pendable Am ericans" (V iking/ Com pass). Even today, the Johns-M anville C orporation, the free w orld's largest pro ducer of asbestos (output in the Soviet Union is som ewhat higher than in th e U.S.) seeks to dilu te th e im pact o f Sellk o ffs findings, which have show n for 10 years th e carci nogenicity of even very low S levels of asbestos dust. elikoff is particularly "Dr. Selikoff is very often upset a t the apparently held up as th e one authority accelerating effect of in asbestos-health research," exposure to two or said a Johns-M anville spokes m ore toxic chem icals. "I hmaavne recently. "I th in k th a t In i a theory," he announced one the industry and in th e field | day in his office. "It is th at you w ill find there are a lo t of m ost hum an cancers are others." The tw o nam es of caused by m ultiple factors. If fered by the spokesm an w ere th is is tru e, it could be th at those of J. C orbett MacDonald cancer is produced by very low o f McGill U niversity, w hose ' levels of several carcinogens, w ork h as long been supported i even though any one by itself by th e asbestos industry, and 1 would have no effect. We George W right, who is an em have already shown, w ith Or. ploye of Johns-M anville. Both : E. Cuyler Hammond of the men have consistently sought American Cancer Society, th at to play down th e th reat posed in th e case o f asbestos w ork by asbestos to the 200,000 ers tw o carcinogens are more w orkers presently exposed to than tw ice as bad as one. As it and th e 800,000 who have bestos w orkers w ho smoke been exposed in the past. ' cigarettes get lung cancer a t a The role of the Governm ent rate eight tim es higher than in th e w ar against o ccu p a-. sm okers who do not w ork tional cancer dates only from i w ith asbestos, and 92 tim es A pril, 1971, when the Occu higher th an people w ho neither pational Safety and H ealth sm oke nor w ork w ith as A ct w ent Into effect. The act bestos! In the case o f refinery created the Occupational Safe w orkers, o r urban dw ellers ty and H ealth A dm inistration who breathe city air, the com (O.S.H.A.) to guarantee a binations m ay be much more "safe and healthful w orkplace" com plicated," for all w orkers, and set up Even when such health N. I.O.S.H., which is charged . w orkers as Selikoff find their w ith researching health prob j way through th e com plications lem s and recom mending safe to achieve a chem ical indict ty standards. 'T he effective- m ent, a m aze of com plications ness of these m easures has ] rem ains. It is n o t easy to in already been blunted by lack duce, o r even coerce, industry of funding. There are so few to give up a profitable pro health inspectors th at a t the cess, o r to spend money on , air-filtration systems. AI- though industry has come a ra te they w ere able to v isit th e nation's w orkplaces du r ing the first eight m onths o f long w ay since the days of I sw eatshops and child labor, | m anagem ent is stilt loathe to the act, they would need 230 years to inspect them all. O. S.H.A.'s enforcem ent of accept outside intervention in I plant processes. "I think in health-and-safety rules has (Continued on Page 32) Reproduced w ith perm ission o f the ccpyric^it owner Further reproducSon prohibited w ithout perm ission The World Health Organization esti mates that 75 to 85 per cent of all cancers are triggered by environ mental agents such as industrial chemicals. Since 1945, these agents have increased dramatically. Continued from Page 28 been less than vigorous; W hen death comes, it is sel fines fo r violations have dom linked w ith occupation averaged a m ere $18 so far. in any records. "G etting rick an am ount any business isn't enough," declares Dr. Su would rath er pay th an con san Daum,w ho is now studying test, and m any would no byssinosis among tex tile w ork doubt rath er pay than comply ers w ith the M t. Sinai team . w ith th e regulation they are ''G overnm ent and industry charged w ith violating. Seli- say you have to be able to koff him self is lim ited a s an count the bodies in the s tre e t industrial researcher to m ak They don't take into account ing his d ata available to the w orkers who lose th eir O.S.HA. and th e unions, and health, who am forced to re to providing expert testim ony tire early, w ho die young. The in court cases. Having done textile industry is particularly so, he Is then left to hope hard to deal w ith, because it is someone else w ill convert his difficult to prove m ortality m edical evidence to adm ini from byssinosis. It is n o t hard strative action. "The en to prove sickness, b u t th a t forcem ent situation in gen doesn't have the sam e im pact eral," says Sheldon Samuels as a stack of bodies." of th e A .F.L.-C iO .'s Industrial An increasing num ber of Union D epartm ent, "is p utrid." scientists in th is field are be Even so, industry has bat ginning to reach a common tled vigorously against the conclusion: If occupational act, and against stric t con health standards are to be trols of asbestos and o th er raised, th e w orkers them selves health th reats. As of th e be m ust raise them . U ntil recent ginning o f 1974, there w ere ly, labor lead en have largely 76 bills before Congress to Ignored the prickly thickets amend the act and th ree to of epidemiology in favor of repeal. In h er forthcom ing th e m ore obvious issues of book "Muscle and Blood" w ages, hours and vacations. (D utton), Rachel S cott de Now, however, a num ber qf scribes labor's disillusionm ent unions, led by th e Oil, Chem w ith the law , quoting an a rti ical and Atomic W orkers, are cle by Bob Kason, editor of a turning aggressively to inde Team ster publication: "W ithin pendent m edical experts such O.S.H.A. itself, th ere has been as Selikoff, supplying them no sense of m ission o r dedi w ith th e union lists th at m ake cation to the Im plem entation cohort studies possible, and of the act on behalf of the teaching th eir members to col w orkers it w as intended to lect a ir sam ples and o ther data p ro tec t Rather, there is a in the workplace. steady and prevailing attitu d e Toward th is end, Dre. Daum in the top echelons th at shows and Jeanne Stellm an, a phys priority compassion fo r prob ical chem ist, have w ritten a lems and inconveniences of volume titled "W ork Is Dan m anagem ent" gerous to Your Health" (Pan theon), designed to "translate If 100,000 typists died on the relevant m edicine, biology, the job w ithin a w eek of and industrial hygiene into each other, it would be the English th at people use im possible to ignore the every day," and to explain th e im m inent danger of occupoaperation of such essential tional disease. A s indicated, tools as air-sam pling devices. however, m ost industrially Selikoff him self is firm in th e caused illnesses develop not conviction th a t w orkers m ust in one week but over many learn to save them selves. years a t an im perceptible "People who w ork in a factory pace. H ie victim is slowly o r in a m ill can see w hat is rendered unable to w ork going on around them b etter through conditions typically than we can," h e says. "O ur described by company doctors m ission is to help them clean as "asthm a" or "tuberculosis." it up." Reproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner Further reproduction prohibited without permission