Document Kj3kyqqzdR3Q2LzYz6oqEdrN

ARCH IVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PREVENTIVE MEDICINE - OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE - AEROSPACE MEDICINE VOLUME 3 July through December, 1961 AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Publication State Board of ed 37 lity from the time a >f silicosis is made as }f pulmonary, pleural, e taken or the worker >rium, where complete as well as indicated are undertaken. The :rial Commission (conand the Chief of the view the findings, and >f exposure, etc., conesent. Only after the : "denied." Jtly informed by letter, e letter to the employee irolina Industrial Comtate Vocation Rehabilis re^nmended to the xpo^B to silica dust. : employee of his right as provided by North ployee has three basic -k and not file a claim, t instance his employer ithout a claim filed by ther on a nonexposing stances), or retain the mployer documents his. ght of the employee to years of the first diagfollowing the death of dng his right to file a :e draws compensation, p medical examination payment to determine npensation payments is Ith, Raleigh, N.C. :cupational Health Section, 41 Health Progress in an Asbestos B JERRY MITCHELL CHARLOTTE, N.C. 1 Textile Works Asbestos textile, a cloth made from a part of American industry and of national fibrous mineral, is fascinating to almost defense. Glass products, cherry red from If everyone. Made in China before Marco Polo molds, are carried on asbestos belts to an and used for wicks for the "eternal fires" nealing lehrs, where the temperature is in Grecian and heathen temples, its resistance gradually lowered to prevent checking or ft to fire has produced wonder and even awe warping. This might include automobile for centuries. . headlights or television tubes. The coat of a Few people know the extent to which steel worker made from asbestos may pro their safety and even their lives depend on tect him from molten metal splashes; gloves this fire- and heat-resistant textile. It touches made from asbestos were used in the last their lives in heaters and ironing cords, in war to handle shell cases from antiaircraft * * heating pads, or the element around which guns. i the glowing wires are wound in electric But asbestos dust can be a killer, and, heaters. It covers ironing boards; it forms in the manufacturing processes of asbestos the insulation on the wire in the kitchen textiles, it has been deadly in the past. range. A small tube may be on the carburetor Imagine a small asbestos textile plant in 1 of automobiles or the small thread that ties 1936, employing 175 to 200 persons, sud the mantle on the gasoline hunting lantern. denly finding that possibly one-half the i The extent to which it is used on ships and work force was affected to some degree by submarines of the U.S. Navy and on air asbestosis. Many men were known to be in planes constantly involved in defense is the first and second stages, and some, pos seldom suspected. Asbestos is an integral sibly, even in the third stage. At the same Submitted for publication April 3, 1961. Manager, Charlotte Works, Thermoid Division, H. K. Porter Company, Inc. time, surTounding property owners were entering suits for damage claimed as the result of air pollution. All this was attended 43 38 ARCHIVES OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Table 1,--Dust Counts from Records of North Carolina State Board of Health, January, 1936 Samples Million Particles Per Cu. Pt. of Air Location 84 62.7 Small card room 86 139.0 Back of cards in small room 87 138.0 Back of cards in small room 90 94.5 Screened exposure (fly willow wind, open place, draughty) 118 53.8 Cotton picker 123 210.0 Stock bin (closed quarters, exhausted, but very dusty) 124 167.4 Same as 123 190 120.0 Dry weaving, unit No. 8 worst loom; started especially for sampling; many asbestos fibers noted 192 45.0 Dry weaving, unit No. 8 next to No. 8 running 238 48.5 Dry weaving around loom No. 283 240 46.8 Dry weaving around loom No. 4 Table 2.--Latest Dust Counts from Records of North Carolina State Board of Health, July, 1960 Samples Million Particles Per Cu. Ft. of Air Location 1,354 0.4 General atmosphere at stock condenserone man loading carts 1,355 1,356 1,357 0.7 General atmosphere around batch-mix ing machines 0.9 Exposure of one man tending sargent cleaner, condenser at reclaim 0.7 General atmosphere at electrical roving cards Nos. 30-34 1,358 2.9 General atmosphere around lap cards Nos. 21-26 1,359 0.6 General atmosphere at cards Nos. 18,19, 20, 27,28, & 29 1,360 1.3 General atmosphere at cards Nos. 6-12 with the newspaper publicity that might be expected to accompany such disclosures. Dust controls were very, very meager, and it was accepted as part of "holding a job" that operators would work in a room so dust-laden that, at times, it was not possible to see to the other end of the row of machines or to recognize fellow employees at that distance. Jobs were important, and the hazards were largely accepted for the sake of dependent families. Welfare pay ments were not a part of the way of life be fore the thirties. Turning the dust which may have been sucked out by the few fans into the open air, to be carried by the prevailing southerly breezes into the nearby homes, was also accepted- as part of the price for having industries providing payrolls. Homes also were as close as possible to the mills. Records of the company which became the Charlotte Works of H. K. Porter Company, Inc. 22 years later are not availa ble, but what actually did happen may have roughtly compared with such a situation as outlined above. The difference would be in degree and in the vividness of the story telling of the narrators. In the year 1936, the North Carolina State Board of Health set up a procedure for x-ray 1,361 1,362 1,363 1,364 1,366 1,367 1,368 1,369 1,370 1,371 0.8 General atmosphere Nos. 1-5,13-15, 3, & 5 not in operation 0.4 General atmosphere around spinning machines Nos. 13-24; Nos. 15 & 20 not In operation 2.8 General atmosphere around Nos. 1-12 winding machines 0.3 General atmosphere at spinning frames Nos. 7-12; No. 12 being doffed for sample - 1.2 Exposure of one man tending cloth looms No. 37 (wet) and No. 39 (dry) 3.1 General atmosphere along aisle by cloth looms Nos. 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48; Nos. 44 & 38 not in operation 0.7 General atmosphere along aisle by tape looms Nos. 17,18,19, & 20 1.9 Operator's exposure of No. 4-W3 auto matic cloth loom (dry) 4.6 General atmosphere along aisle between Nos. 29 & 30 tape looms; No. 29 had wet warp, dry fill, and local exhaust; No. 30 all wet, no exhaust 1.6 General atmosphere along aisle of looms Nos. 1, 34,35, & 54 in the basement; No. 5 not in operation; Nos. 1 & 54 all wet; No. 34 dry fill, wet warp and medical examinations of employees in North Carolina engaged in the mining of granite and mica, carving tombstones, work ing in aggregate plants, or working with asbestos. The procedure was expanded to include issuing work cards to employees in : 44 Vol. 3, July, 1961 1 health in asbestos TEXTILE WORKS 39 _ Fig. 1.--View of the card room showing dust hoods and pipes. Department air con ditioned. Temperature maintained at 78F. Relative humidity held between 35% and 40% while 80,000 cu. ft. of air per minute is being filtered. Air in this room circulated com pletely 6 times per hr. these trades or withholding cards where circumstances dictated that the issuance of work cards was not advisable. The number of asbestos textile plants has always been small, and this is still true today. This plant has increasingly represent ed a very substantial segment of this vitally necessary industry. Today the Charlotte Works of the Thermoid Division of H. K. Porter, Inc., with modern equipment and employing more than 400 persons, is one of the largest producers of asbestos textiles in the United States or, in fact, in the world. The threshold limit of 5,000,000 particles per cubic foot must have seemed utterly unattainable when the North Carolina State Board of Health records showed such dust counts as those given in Table 1, taken in January, 1936. These are extremes, of course, but few figures were within the 5,000,000 considered the threshold limit. These compare with the latest dust counts of the North Carolina State Board of Health, taken in July, 1960 (Table 2). Much credit is due the insurance carrier who took the risk in 1936 and the North Carolina State Board of Health for the institution of corrective measures beginning in 1936. These have been carried on rigor ously. The program led to the statement by Governor Hodges in his address to the 1958 Governor's Conference on Occupational Health in Chapel Hill: "Going back a few years great progress has been made in the fight against the two main dust diseases in North Carolina--silicosis and asbestosis. The latter one has been almost licked and Mitchell 41 ''the incidence of silicosis has been greatly .reduced." The North Carolina working conditions -'of 25 years ago have given way to air conditioning and atmospheric controls. Em ployees give little thought to the periodic . visits of the mobile x-ray unit of the North1 Carolina State Board of Health, and accept `- as routine the regular dust collecting and /-dust counting procedures of engineers. . .-Shortly after-the annual visit of the x-ray 7,unit, employees receive from the North ^Carolina Department of Health a work Ccard certifying to the state of their health ; 'and stating that they may safely, continue - to work in the industry. This means more -to workers than the statement of our own / doctor, who freely discusses with employees .'the 14X17 chest x-ray pictures we, our selves, make. This is an outside assurance with the authority of the State Board of Health of North Carolina. Under the system exercised by the North Carolina State Board of Health the occur rence of any lung injury would be quickly detected, and an individual with asbestosis, even in the first stages, would be refused a work card. Compensation for even this degree of injury is equally as certain. A by-product, but equally important to the health and well-being of our employees, is the detection of other health problems which come to light in the examinatons. All of this has resulted in our employees receiving a degree of medical attention above average. Medical attention and advice should be, and we believe is, free of suspicion of deception in self-interest. Jerry Mitchell, Charlotte Works, Thermoid Di vision, H. K. Porter Company, Inc., P.O. Box 10516, Charlotte, N.C. Mitchell 47