Document Em8ngMXJn6kB0KQe0X4VBZx3R

Thurzd.'.y, Aui'tiH 22, i'j~4 -,.'5 V' n B\ \d |j Li J \/ L .^n n / - ! +T\ 1 l JU - o n< h fm .* j tr~ Li Li Si^La .-/ ___ ___t PAGE ONE H ! 1--t. - Ti, *-j la L. ~ b.y 'o L - By Judith Rand: I | unrelated to vinyl chloric . Star-New* Staff v'""-: ; may explain the diffc. Accumulating cv'-.'ence is I ences. But he emphasised heightening the suspicion !j that the possibility that that the plastic polyvinyl j exposure to the chemical chloride -- already linked, may be responsible is also to unexpectedly large nurn-:|i very real. He is now in the hers of a rare form of liver cancer -- may also be il jj process, he said, of determining the precise nature of implicated in causing birth defects. The evidence is regarded i I 1 the birth defects in question to see if there is any pattern of uniformity. as preliminary but is suffi Meanwhile, Dr. Irving J. ciently disquieting to be Selikof? of the Mount Sinai prompting a Hurry of scien School of Me.' ine in New tific investigation, both in Ye,"1'., tcT the ..avirenme at and out of government, in j : ommittce in the Senate the United States an i a i yesterday that a graduate number of obucr count,if; ` student colleague had i where billions of tons of the plastic are in.-, e- for many purposes each. In every ca: . j far, the damage is apparently c: erf by inhalation of - i. examined the white bleed j; cells of 11 men working in f vinyl chloride plants and {.found abnormal chrcmoj; somes in more of the satni: pies than would have been chloride g:.s. The ga.-. is il used in the manufacture . f the solid p x known ..s polyvinyl ci de and oft.n remains the a the form of residues. expected wh t the findings were compared with those of 10 men matched for age and other factors who had not been occupationaiiy ex posed to the chemical. At the Oh: me Depart Chromosomes are the ment of 'j;:Ui: Colum- , units in the nucleus of eyery ] .bus, for ::: mplc. Dr. Deter I cell -- including Hie c-ggs Infante of the division of I and sperm -- that transmit chronic disease.", has in the bsdily characteristics from last several weeks um- ined the vital slat,. tics ; records of the three coni- 5 munitics in the state where I there are vinyl chloride |j plants. | HIS ID , MIN AT ON' Of d| the rec, s has chscloscd II that, while the 197": to 1973 rate of such defer., in the | state as a whole'was 11. i; per 1,00!: live births, the j rate in the three comrauiiij ties -- Ashi. bul' , Lake I Avon and Ptim ille -- j was almost twice ; great. In a telephone i e.rview, ! Infante rt; serf t!,.-. enures I 'i** !i ul *"7 one genera:' rt to the next. ! jThus, if the r ..romosomes of i-jcither parent are not intact, there is a real possibility that any offspring of the unic- will have a birth de fect as a result. Selikuff his done much of die scientific detective work linking vinyl chloride to angiosarcomas (the rare cancers) of the-liver. He has also recently question ed men at two plants -- one owned by Union Car' ide, the other by the Dow Chemical Co. -- where One of every four cases of I angiosarcoma in Sweden, occurring between 1953 and 1969, foun.' for example, was in fc'bies. And, in i addition, ;..a work of Dr. Ceasaro Multoni of Italy, the scientist who did much of the original lak'.-utory wrork on vinyl chlov `e in animals, clearly c'-m.on- strated that when pmgr.ant rats were expos d to the gas, many of the pups de veloped angiosarcoma. Mo, re.emly, scientists at the v,,ti. r. o: otocr.- holm in S-. on have been > - polyvinyl chloride is made using sxa.. of salmonella about the stillbirths and bacter;:-. to determine 'isc: '-"'cs experienced whethc exposing them to byth-r e:. vinyl hloride causes changes in their genetic "I FEEL an uneasiness traits. The .'chnique, de because of the apparent in veloped by D . Bruce Arnes crease in the.> stillbirths at the Univc :ty o Califor and miscarriage.",," Selikoff nia, Berkeley, is regarded told a -eporter after yester as particularly sensitive in day's hearing. "These are ferreting out biological plants where many chemi behavior in lower cals are made so that expo organisms that is predictive sure to substances other of similar biological behav than vinyl chloride or in ior in man. deed factors unrelated to envr ley meat may be to TIIE . EDITT work has blax. \ Neverthci.os, this is been published in English. a lc-ac. that must be pur It nports that expos": o to sued." Should proof positive develop that vinyl chloride causes birth defects, many scientists would not be sur prised. It has become in creasingly apparent from the work <Y several labora tories t. : substances which ca a cancer fre quently are capable f damaging the fetus as weii. Moreover, -.omc of the data on angiosarcoma -- the cancer linked to plastic manufacture -- suggests that a heightened risk of tumors may have existed from birth. T0 0 0 9 SS2 BFG26446 2 PAGE TV70 vinyl chloride pcs causes change" in the d;etaT . requh rMs of the bacteria and rhe conditio:.-!: under which they will prow. Said another \r,y, this rr:rails that the cK-mica! acts on sc. e of the graes of the or; nisme, permanently cht ring the structure of the -oteins for f irk they act a-, blueprint.; in ceils. Asked about the Swedish work yesterde", Ames said that he and Dr. Joyce iMcCcn- at Berkeley -- to gether with Dr. Vince Sim mon at the nearby Stanford Rerearch Institute -- have be -n doing experiments similar to those performed in Stock;, .m. The results are preliminary, he report ed, but seem also to poir.: to vinyl chloride as a sub stance capable dame, ir.g the genes. The key questkn, Ames said in a telephone intevievz. is whether human exposure to the chemical reaches the rerm or repro ductive cells so that they arc altered when a preg nancy is conceived. Yesterday's Senate hear ing did not resolve this issue. II wever. Dr. Joseph Wagoner, a government scientist for both the Na tional Institute of Occupa tional Safety and Health and the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, reported that a study will soon jet under way which may pro vide the answer. The study, he said, is to be made for beauty p rlor personnel who have iiad long and constant e.*.y sure to hairsprays. Vinyl chlo ride v.- '5 contained in the pm !'cnt of many hr.trsp . from about 19.VS until cr .: .T this ; r v.-hen its potential car. ors became known. Meanwhile, another wit ness at the jeering -- Dr. Robert Schaitner of the Food and Drue Administra tion -- told ci recent evi dence that -- besides being ir.h led -- some vinyl chlo ride ay have gotten into the ir 1 supply. TESTS HAVE shown, SchaiTnerrepotted, that the chemical is capable of "mi grating" out of plastic liq uor bottles or flasks into alcohol and cut of the plas tic containers in which food produmsuch ns some cook;; oils, have been sold. Standards soon to be pub lished in the Federal Regis ter, Ite said, will require manufacturers to produce j-.'astic food container- free ol hazardous levels c. the chemical. But the pro- ..;ia, he admitted, is that many such materi have been produced for years. No feeding studies have been done c r. . heir:- to demon strate whether A-mg vinyl chloride by mout.i is as dan gerous as breathing it up per .-. to be, he explained, but .he possibility cannot be ignored. All of this caused subcom- m: .ec Chairman butt. John V. funney, D-CaJif., to com ment; "There has to be n better way of terminating tentialiy toxic materials food -- the more so, as in This case, when no test: have been done in advance on the possible impact on public health." ZOOOQGZZ BFG26447