Document Lg6wEpLan00GXJ61X4MNxYa6g

l" / f- \ CURRENT REPORT R. f, ttruiNA g p LYtfCH Litigation GOVERNMENT ASKS COURT CLARIFICATION IN VC ORDER TO CONTINUE EMERGENCY RULE The emergency temporary standard for vinyl chloride should be continued until the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reaches its decision on the merits of the cases challenging the permanent standard, the Government maintained in a motion for clarification filed December 24. The motion seeks clarification of the court's December 13 order granting the various stay motions in The Society of the Plastics Industry, Inc. v. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and other consolidated cases (Current Report, December 19, p. 843). It is the Government's understanding that the court's order leaves in force all provisions of the emergency tem porary standard including its 50 ppm ceiling on worker ex posure to vinyl chloride pending disposition of the merits of the petitions for review, and that the emergency temporary standard is to be continued in effect until the court reaches its decision on the merits. The stay motions filed by The Society of Plastics Industry, Inc., Tenneco Chemicals. Inc., Air Products and Chemicals Inc., and Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corporation, specifically provided for continuation of the emergency tem porary standard, but those of Firestone Plastics Company and Union Carbide Corporation, did not address that ques tion. Since the court granted all four motions, clarification is appropriate, the Government said. The stay motions of SPI, Tenneco, Air Products, and Hooker chemicals also requested that the court establish a "lead-time" for the application of the permanent standard should it be upheld on the merits. Since the court's December 13 order does not address this aspect of the stay motions it is the Government's understanding.that the court has not acted upon that request, and that the court will either deal with that issue when rendering its decision on the merits or remit the petitioners to their remedies under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Plastics Industry Reply The Society of the Plastics Industry's reply noted that there is no need for the court to clarify its order regarding the continuation of the emergency temporary standard since SPT agrees with the Government. But SPI does not share the Government's view that the court did not address the request for `lead-time''. SPI said it expressly sought relief which would provide that, following the court's decision, a period of 90 days would be allowed as lead-time for the petitioner? to make preparations to comply with any portion cf the standard that might be upheld. Since this type of relief was specifically requested SPI said, and it was unopposed m the Secretary of Labor's responses to the stay requests, "it seems clear to us that the term? of the court's order granting a stay and `other and further relief' includes the granting of all of the interim relief requested. The court should issue only a clarifying amendment stating that the emergency temporary standard shall remain in effect end that, upon issuance of an opinion upholding any portion of the standard, the petitioners shall have a reasonable period of 90 days before compliance will be re quired," SPI said. Neither the clarification of the court's order, nor the final decision in the case has been issued. The Occupational Safe ty and Health Administration is enforcing the 50 ppm level at present. ~T.&- -TAr+tR ______ OCAW Suit Tne Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers i Union (OCAW) filed suit in the Court oi Appi District of Columbia on the vinyl chloride sta> Reportedly, the Government is trying to persuade to drop the suit, since it has been heard already in t Circuit. If the suit is not dropped, the Government \ to have it consolidated and moved to the Second Girt Government must file a certified copy of the re< January 13 if the case is to proceed in a normal fa: Vinyl Chiorirla MESA-N1GSH ADOPT REGULATIONS FOR APPROVAL OF VC RESPIRATORS Regulations for testing vinyl chloride respirators we adopted jointly by the Mining Enforcement and Safety / ministration and the National Institute for Occupatim Safety and Health on December 30. The Occupational Safety and Health Administrati adopted a standard for occupational exposure to vir chloride on October 4 (Current Report, October 3, p 491 The standard provides that respiratory protection shall ; provided at the request of employees exposed to 25 parts p million or less of vinyl chloride and requires that respiratc shall be selected from those approved under Part 11 cf Ti; 30. Code of Federal Regulations. Specifically, the standard requires, among other things, ti where the atmosphere concentration of vinyl chloride is n over 25 ppm, any gas mask with front or back-mount; canister or powered air-purifying respirator with canist which provides a service life of at least four hours may ! used, and where the concentration is not over 10 ppm, ai chemical cartridge respirator with an organic vapor ca tridge which provides a service life of at least one hour rn; be used. The standard further requires a program to assu: timely replacement of canisters or cartridges. Purpose of Rules j The purpose of the amendments adopted by MESA ai NIOSH is to establish special procedures for testing vin chloride respirators and to adopt a requirement that at canister or cartridge used to protect employees against e nosure to vinyl chloride, have an end-of-service life i dicator. Unlike many other gases, vinyl chloride has no i herent warning properties. Where a gas lias an odor a: where a canister or cartridge is nearing or is at the end oi i useful life, the worker is aware because he can smell ti gas. Vinyl chloride is colorless and odorless. Consequent!, with due regard for the wearer's health, any cartridge ( canister should possess an end-of-service-liie indicator. Se tion 11.205 provides that after June 30, 1970, each canisti or cartridge submitted for approval must have on end of-so rice-life indicator. Tne delay in this requirement is to giv NIOSH an opportunity to test the effectiveness of the it dicators Section 11.205 further provides that aftt December 81, 1975, when respiratory protection at 25 ppi or less becomes mandatory, respirators without an err. -of-service-life indicator will not be considered approved L use by employees exposed to vinvl chloride. There is no delay i:i the effective date for the special tes' adopted for vinyl chloride respirators. Since it is essenti; that there are available approved respiratory devices fc protection against exposure to vinyl chloride, MESA an Copyright ^ 1975 by The Bureau of Notional Affairs, Inc. SL 027033 I NIQSHJound that good cause existed for omitting notice of - proposed rulemaking. The amendments add a new Subpart N to Part If, Title 3C, CFR, with sections 11.200-11,208 applicable to vinyl chloride respirators. The amendments will appear in a future supplement to the - OSHR Reference File. Approvad Respirators The testing and certification laboratories of MOSH at Morgantown, W. Va., approved two respirators for use in ex posure to vinyl chloride. Approval was granted Mine Safety Appliances Company. Pittsburgh, Pa., (approval number TO 140 84) for 25 ppm VC for not more than four hours or until the end of the workshift, whichever occurs first. The second approval was granted to Scott Aviation, Plant Four, South Haven, Mich., (TC 14G 85), with the same restrictions as MSA's approval. More respirators are expected to be approved sometime in the future. Enforcement JUDGE'S REJECTION OF STIPULATION, PENALTY INCREASE AFFIRMED BY OSAHRC A Review Commission judge's decision to reject a stipulated penalty that contained a 50 percent abatement credit, thereby increasing the penalty, was affirmed by a 2-1 ruling of the full Commission, which rejected use of a rigid 50 percent abatement credit as "repugnant to the purposes of the Act." The case resulted from a Labor Department inspection of the New Berlin, Wis., roofing construction project of the J.M. Roofing Company (No. 1759). At the hearing before Review Commission Judge Paul L. Bradv, the parties stipulated that a penalty for a crane viola tion was not contested and that they only wished to try the issue of whether the company violated 29 CFR 1926.550 (a) (15) (i) by failing to have a crane operated at a minimum clearance of 10 feet from an electrical power line. In the process of lowering equipment between the building and the power line the crane cable struck the power line and an employee of the company was electrocuted. The judge observed that the company's foreman made no reasonable ef fort to eliminate the dangerous condition in spite of his knowledge that the crane had to operate very close to the electrical power line. In his iead opinion. Commissioner Timothy F. Cleary stated that the critical issue was whether the stipulation should be pierced. He pointed out that the Secretary's proposed penalty of $225 was arrived at after consideration of the statutory factors listed in Section 17 (j) of the Oc cupational Safety and Health Act. There was an allowance of a 50 percent abatement credit even though the company had corrected the situation because the rented crane was no longer at the worksite. Although an appropriate credit for timely abatement is consonant with the remedial nature of a civil penalty, according to Cleary . . it ir. something to be applied when it beats a real and substantial relationship to the tacts of the case." In this case an abatement credit was not necessary for inducing present compliance. "Therefore, the penalty reflecting the abatement credit and contained in the stipulation can hardly be said to be consistent with the application of the statutory penalty factors," Cleary stated. He affirmed the judge's increase of the penalty from $225 to $500. OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY fit HEALTH REPORTER In a concurring opinion, Commissioner .lames F. Van Namee said that he did not feel that the question of whether to pierce the stipulation was critical because the parties superseded the stipulation by presenting evidence on the penally issue. Chairman Robert D. Moran, concurring in part and dissen ting in part, found the commission's affirmance of an in creased penalty in this case "particularly repugnant." In Moran's opinion, the parties had a right to assume that their stipulation would preclude any further consideration of the appropriateness of the penalty. The result ordered by the judge caught the parties by surprise and was patently unfair, according to the chairman, Moran believes that the Commis sion has no authority to disturb a settlement reached between the Secretary and the employer and feels that the Secretary can and should enforce no penalty in excess of that specified in the agreement. Tms ruling will appear in a future Decisions supplement. Enforcement OSAHRC UPHOLDS VACATION OF COTTON DUST CITATION: CITES SAMPLING PROCESS The Secretary of Labor's failure to distinguish ordinary dirt from raw cotton dust contained in air samples taken by an industrial hygienist properly resulted in vacation of a citation for exposure of employees to excessive amounts of raw cotton dust. This 2-1 ruling by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, issued December 19, affirmed Judge John J. Morris' decision in Spring Air Mattress Company of Colorado (No. 1422). The Secretary's industrial hygienist visited Spring Air's cotton mattress manufacturing plant for the purpose of sampling the air in the plant's garnetting room. In this room one employee removes burlap sacks from bales of cotton linters, pulls the bales apart and places the cotton on a con veyor. The cotton is then moved through a garnetting machine that cleans and layers the cotton into batting. A sec ond worker removes the batting from the conveyor. Air samples were taken by means of an MSA Model G per sonal sampling pump that was attached to each employee. The pump was attached to a cassette placed approximately three inches from the employee's breathing zones. The sampling process lasted approximately three and one half hours. At no time throughout the entire process did the in dustrial hygienist attempt to distinguish the types of dust components collected on the filters. While assuming that they were cotton she admitted that other kinds of dust, such as dirt, would have been present in the room air if there was "other dirt besides the raw cotton." Since the sampled air contained ordinary dirt as well as cotton and since no attempt was made to distinguish them the commission majority of Commissioner James F. Van Namee and Chairman Robert D. Moran said that they could onh speculate as to the amount of raw cotton dusi that was in tnc air. Accordingly, the Secretary did not sustain hir burden of proof and the judge's decision was affirmed Commissioner Timothy F. Cleary, dissenting, would find that the employer violated 29 CFR 1910.93, which proscribes a time weighted limit value of one rniligram per cubic meter of air. In bis opinion, the obvious presence of cotton dust in the room combined with the heavy concentrations of dust that were measured constitute strong circumstantial evidence that the level of cotton dust exposure was ex- Occupational Safety & Health Reporter oil03'1 Sh 1 1 rwc y^^^ If government allows workers to be exposed to the gas, some of them may die. If it eliminates all exposure, a valuable industry may disappear. OH THE HORNS OF THE VINYL CHLORIDE DILEMMA by Pend H. Weaver Not long ago, cancer and plastic were associated with each other only in the writings of Norman Mailer, where they serve as symbols of decadence and self-destructive ness in the high-technology society. Since January of this year a series of medical reports has shown this associa tion to be a real scientific fact as well. It is now clear that vinyl chloride, a gas from which the second most widely used U.S. plastic is made, causes a fatal cancer of blood vessel cells in the liver; the gas is also implicated in a host of additional diseases, ranging from gastrointestinal bleeding to chromosome damage. These discoveries have touched off a flurry of regulalory activity. The Food and Drug Administration, the En vironmental Protection Agency, and the Consumer Prod uct Safety Commission have all banned aerosol spray? using vinyl chloride as a propellant. But the measure that cuts deepest was taken bv the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSH A has moved to reduce the permissible level of worker exposure to vinyl chloride in the plants where it is made or converted into plastic. Preparing for the iceberg In the course of these developments, it has become clear lhat our regulators have a hard time thinking sensibly about problems like vinyl chloride. The businessmen be ing regulated and the workers affected seem to find it no easier. The fact is that our society seems to have no agreed-upon standards for dealing with situations in which medical and economic considerations collide headon. Since collisions of this sort will plainly be numerous in the years ahead--the vinyl chloride case is widely iden tified as the tip of an enormous regulatory iceberg'--it seems useful to get clear on the issues involved. If vinyl chloride were an unimportant substance, or if it were known to be dangerous only in very high concen- Research associate: Sydney Ladensohn Stern trations, or if it were easy to keep human beings out contact with it, there would be no particular proble In that case the health danger could be completely elit nated at little or no cost, and the question of what to would answer itself. Unfortunately, the vinyl chloride issue isn't so sim] It seems to be very difficult and costly--and it may be i possible--to guarantee that no vinyl chloride worker v be exposed to the gas. Though no one knows for sure is possible that even very small exposures may cause si< ness or death. Yet it is also true that the plastics m; from vinyl chloride are extremely important to the Am ican economy. The market value of the gas being p duced this year, and of the resin made from it, is perh: SI.5 billion; the gas and resin industries together emp about 6,000 workers. But what most people think of the "plastics industry''--the transformation of resins to products--is a far larger operation. The total mim' of johs involved in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) alone about 320,000; the sales volume runs to many billio And there are no entirely satisfactory substitutes PVC at hand. Banning it would be certain to cause gr: economic dislocations. Thus the regulators at OSHA are caught between proverbial rock and a hard place. It is clear that th task should be to find the right "trade-offs"--to dev regulations in which the benefit of increased health The most hazardous job in polyvinyl chloride plants used to be cleaning of the vats in which vinyl chloride polymerizes into PVCwhitish resin at the worker's feet. Of the sixteen known U.S. case: vmyl-chloride-ralated liver cancer, fourteen occurred in vat cleaners, job is presumably a lot less hazardous since the introduction of respirators, protective clothing, and air evacuation (provided by the e ghng hose) that are shown here. The stainless-steel-lined vat shown i B.F. Goodrich's Pedricktown, New Jersey, plant, perhaps the most rr ern in the U.S. The vat is entered and cleaned manually only one month. Until recently vats in most older plants were entered onct twice a day. 150 FC-HTIJNE Odot^r 1074 SL 027040 Henry C The View from NIOSH: Make It Safe On January 22, 1974, Dr. Maurice Johnson, environmental health direc tor for B. F. Goodrich, called on Marcus Key, director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Johnson had a discovery to report. Three workers in Goodrich's Louisville polyvinyl chloride plant had died from angiosarcoma of the liver since 1971. Key summoned his top aides, who agreed that they had an emergency on their hands. Two days later a small army led by NIOSH Standards Development chief Vernon Rose, invaded the Louisville plant to conduct the first of many ` walk through" inspections. Within a week. Rose's task force had a list of recommendations for re ducing worker exposure to vinyl chloride: --protective coveralls, shoes, and gloves for workers exposed to PVC. --airtight suits and respirators for reactor cleaners. --daily showers fur exposed workers. --a 50 parts per million suggested ceiling on vinyl chloride monomer exposure. Normally, writing a criteria doc ument--NIO.SHese for a recommend ed standard--is an eighteen-month process involving exhaustive study. In this instance, however. Rose relied on guesswork and precedent. Assum ing that vinyl chloride causes cancer through inhalation and skin contact, he modeled his standards on. those used earlier by NIOSH for industrial carcinogens. Aiming for a mid-March deadline, NIOSH organized a hectic series of meetings and studies. By the end of February, its toxicology group had been unable to determine the carcino genicity of VCM below 50 ppm. The medical group had suggested a bat tery of liver tests,for PVC workers, but industry and labor had split o\ the exposure coiling. Industry urg. 50 ppm, which it. knew it con achieve; labor advocated "no deter able level," refusing to treat worke as guinea pigs. In this situation. Rose simp toughened and expanded on his e;. lier recommendations. Most impi tant, he decided that the ceiling fvinyl chloride be set at "no deteetat level"--the only exposure he knew be safe. "It is doubtful," he concedt in a memo to Key, "that (tnij pin can show workroom levels of no detected." To meet it, respirato would have to be worn at all time He wasn't sure this was practic; but he was certain it was safe. On March 11, Dr. Key submits NIOSH's recommendation to Assis ant Labor Secretary John Stende When OSHA proposed its permane standard two months later, it inco porated most of the NIOSH text ve batim, including the "no detectab level" provision. The View from Firestone: Make It Practical To Todd C. Walker, the Towering, outspoken president of Firestone Plastics, OSHA's proposed standard was as much a crisis as the Goodrich bombshell had been to NIOSH. He was determined to resist the stand ard with "the maximum information" at the OSHA hearings in Washington. D.C., this summer. Walker assembled four task forces --legal, engineering, financial, and medical--to develop a Firestone-rec ommended standard on a crash basis. Four alternatives were to be studied: the interim 50-ppm standard, "nondetec.table," and two intermediate levels chosen arbitrarily--10 ppm maximum with a time-weighted aver age (TWA) of 25 ppm, and a 1-5-ppm ceiling with a TWA of 10 ppm. For each level the questions were: is it safe and is it feasible? Weeks later, the medical group was unable to say positively that any of the levels was unsafe.- An epidemio logical study of Firestone's rubber and PVC workers showed no signifi cant differences, suggesting that 50 ppm was not relatively unsafe. The engineering group reported that the nondetectable level was un attainable. It also forwarded a cri tique of OSHA's proposed work prac tices. Protective clothing for all workers was unnecessary, it said, be cause PVC dust is not a carcinogen. VCM gas, which is, could be kept away from the skin only by air-tight suits, which would be "hot, cum bersome, expensive, and dangerous." OSHA's provision for air-supplied respirators for all exposed workers was also ill advised. These would be uncomfortable ("an instrument of torture"), fatiguing, .probably haz ardous, and would interfere with work. One portable type weighs twenty-eight pounds and would have to be changed three times an hour. Nonportable respirators could be used, but workers would be attachto air hoses (themselves a workpla hazard) and confined to a radius less than fifty feet. The financial group reported th capital investment would have double to attempt reaching a nond tectable level. The legal staff conclu ed that OSHA's proposed standa was unfeasible and therefore illeg; When it came to deciding wh level he would recommend, Walkhad a problem. His medical evidenshowed the three levels above no detectable to be equally safe. His e gineers said that the feasibility of tl lowest of these (15-ppm ceiling wi a 10-ppm TWA) was uncertain, ai Walker ruled it out. Left with a choi between the two higher levels, . opted for the 40-ppm ceiling with 25-ppm TWA to show that Firesto was willing to do more than the mir mum. Thus, with a'practicality rei iniscent of NIOSH's decision to re ommend a level it knew was sal Firestone ended up recommending level it knew it could achieve. SL 027041 workers is balanced against the increased cos', to the plas tics industry and society as a whole. Unfortunately, this task has remained largely unacknowledged. OSHA probably will end up compromising on the de gree of exposure to the gas it will allow; its decision is apt to be announced this month. But the agency has been under terrific pressure to view the issue before it in ab solutist terms, as if its only logitima'e concern were the preservation of absolute security for the vinyl plastics industry, or the achievement of perfect safety for vinyl chloride workers. For a while, it seemed a foregone conclusion that OSHA itself would opt for perfect safety. On May 10, it formally proposed that the new standard for vinyl chlor ide be set at "no detectable level." i.e., that no plant would be allowed to operate so long as any of the gas could be found in the air or in ,contact with workers. The industry replied, in effect, that any such standard would be techni cally impossible and economically disastrous, and that if OSHA went through with it, the polyvinyl chloride in dustry would be put out of business. OSHA's final decision will affect more than this single industry and its customers. The vinyl chloride issue may be viewed as the first major test case for a new movement in government regulation. The leaders of the movement are three of the newest federal regulatory agencies, all created since 1970; EPA, CPSC, and OSHA. One general idea behind all of these agencies is that business can no klonger promiscuously pass on to society all the indirect costs of running a modern economy. As Sheldon \Y. Sam uels, health director of the Industrial Union Department of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., put it, "The free ride on social costs is at an end. In the plastics industry you're seeing a manifestation of social costs." With jurisdiction over virtually every product and sub stance, these agencies, together with the FDA, are be ginning to use their.sweeping powers to reduce the pub lic's risk of chronic disease, especially from industrial products. Some of the agencies are subjecting new sub stances to rigorous pretesting before they are allowed on to the market. And with the vinyl chloride case, they have tackled the first of a long list of basic substances on which our industrial economy is already built. It could put you to sleep During the first decades of its commercial existence, vinyl chloride seemed a most unlikely candidate for the role of heavy in a historic regulatory drama. Put into full-scale U.S. production in 1939, polyvinyl chloride was hailed as a "miracle" material: cheap, stable, fire-resist ant, and able to assume an extraordinary range of soft and hard forms. Its major applications now include coated fabrics (like those used in automobile seat covers), wire sulation, floor tiling, pipe and conduit, phonograph cords, and medical supplies, e.g., blood-storage bags. In the beginning the vinyl chloride gas seemed to be virtually harmless. The only apparent dangers were explosion (at concentrations beginning around 3b.0 parts per million) and narcosis, in fact, during t 1940's the gas was tried out as a medical anesthetic, h doctors abandoned it when it was found to cause he; arrhythmia. With low prices providing little incentive f conservation, producers paid no particular attention workplace exposure levels so long as they were safe below the point of fire and explosion. And yet exposure levels in plants producing the g; itself were probably not very high even in the ear year?. Vinyl chloride is synthesized from chlorine ar. petrochemical feedstocks (usually ethylene) in. a coi tinuous closed process. The plants, which resemble o refineries (and in some eases are attached to them), ai open to the air. Historically, the heavy exposures hav occurred in the plants where vinyl chloride is polyme? ized into PVC, the whitish powdery resin from whirl actual plastics are made. It could make you "high" Polymerization is a batch process: vinyl chloride mon I omer (VCM) and other substances are put into a pres surized vat, heat is applied, and hours later, wher, polymerization is completed, the vat is emptied, opened, and cleaned for the next batch. The process is full of leaks. In most of the early plants the gas could be smelled almost constantly (VCM has a faintly sweet odor that seems to be detectable at concentrations above 2,000 parts per million), and workers occasionally got "high" from the fumes. It is widely agreed that in this early period, lasting into the 1950's, exposures of several thousand ppm were common. During the 1930's, as the vinyl industry grew, a trickle of little-noted and often inconclusive medical reports be gan to raise doubts about the monomer's presumed harmlessness. In 1949 a Russian group found a hepatitis like condition in more than one-fourth of seventy-three PVC workers examined, and over the next ten years European researchers encountered other symptoms: skin lesions, a circulatory disorder, gastritis, and derma titis, to name a few. By the mid-1960's these had been confirmed and were described collectively as "vinyl chloride disease." Later in the 1960's, acroosteolysis, a disease involving a degeneration of the finger bones, was identified among workers who clean polymerization vats. As these findings accumulated, producers began to reduce exposure levels. In 1961 the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, a voluntary standards-setting organization, had put the maximum safe exposure at 500 ppm. During the 1960's industry began working to get much lower than that, and by the early 1970's exposure levels were generally in the 100-to- 200-ppm range, with short-term-"excursions" to levels many times higher. In this general downward movement, Dow Chemical SL 027042 continued page 200 Books & Ideas continued policy action, like a stone dropped into a pool, sets off ripples of reaction. Since the economy responds with varying time lags, a second stone is often dropped while the ripples from the first are still roiling the economic waters. When this "stabilization" exercise is repeated often enough, the result is greater instability. There are also technical objections to using a full-employment budget to justi fy federal deficits, as the Nixon Admin istration did in 1972. Such a budget no longer measures the true impact of gov ernment spending and lending on the economy. Federal activities totaling tens of billions of dollars annually--among them the farm credit agencies, the Ex port-Import Bank, and the Federal Na tional Mortgage Association--have been spun off into independent corporations. A better yardstick Another defect is even more serious. "Full employment," a concept intended to measure economic slack, is still de fined solely in terms of joblessness. Last year,- unemployment averaged 4.9 per cent, and the federal budget showed a surplus on the full-employment basis, suggesting that there was still room for fiscal stimulus. Yet shortages of all kind.;, notably in basic materials, plagued the nation. Full employment ought to be measured in terms of our total capacity to produce, including labor, plant, and capital. If such a yard stick had been in use a few years ago, we might have had more timely warning of today's raging inflation. Despite such problems. -Jim Tobin clearly believes that the new economics is still the road to millennium, provided that we adopt a number of fiscal and monetary reforms. Two have been put into effect since the book was written. By setting the international value of the dollar free to float, the Nixon Adminis tration gave the Federal Reserve free dom to pursue a more flexible monetary policy. And Congress at last has created budget committees to set overall guide lines for spending. But Tobin also demands changes that have little chance of adoption. For in stance, he would give the President pow er to adjust appropriations to fit budget targets. And he wants Congress to sep arate tax reform from bills to raise or cut taxes, so that temporary surcharges or credits can be enacted speedily to stabilize the economy. If adopted, such proposals would only lead the government back to fine tunin- with "macro." or broad gauge, cconumi policies. That D like using a shotgu- where a rifle would be more appropriaL At comparatively small cost, we coni open-end the duration of unamploymen insurance, a step that would aid matuvi trained workers. There should be, a Chairman Arthur Burns of the Fed ha suggested, a much enlarged public en ployment program when the jobless rate go up. It would help mostly young po< pie and those without the skills to con pete in a modern economy. Putting 800 000 people on a government payroll a 85,000 a year would cost about $4 hi lion, but it might reduce unemploymer by a fifth (i.e., from G to .5 percent' In Tobin's program, public-service en ployment is only an adjunct of muc more ambitious--and expensive--macrc economic policies. In today's changed economic enviroi ment, the new economics has become tt old economics. The old solutions are nt only inflationary, but of dubious help t the people who need it most. Broai gauge policies for economic stabilit should be stable themselves. There is r need to change them to offset each wigg on economists' charts. EN Vinyl Chloride continued from page 153 was far and away the leader. In 1961 it had conducted an animal experiment showing liver effects at levels as low as 100 ppm and had decided to get its own plants below 50 ppm. By the early 1970's, Dow had achieved average ex posures in the neighborhood of 25 ppm in its copolymer plants (one of which produces resins for Saran Wrap). In 1970, Dr. Pierluigi Viola, an Italian physician study ing ac-roosteolysis for Solvay, a major European PYO producer, reported an unexpected discovery. After twelve months' exposure at 20,000 ppm, many of his experi mental rats had developed cancers. Doubts about Viola's procedures led Montedison and other European producers to commission Dr. Cesare Maltoni to undertake a largescale animal experiment to see if this carcinogenic effect could be replicated at lower exposure levels. Bv the end of 1973 Maltoni's well-executed study had shown that levels of YOM as low as 250 ppm induced a variety of cancers in rats, including angiosarcomas of the liver. In June, 1974, he reported angiosarcomas at 50 ppm., American producers began to join the inquiry into vinyl chloride and cancer in 1973. Early that year the Manufac turing Chemists Association decided to commission two massive studies. One was an animal study somewhat like Maltoni's (it has since confirmed his findings). The otlit was an epidemiological analysis of the morbidity ar mortality history of American vinyl workers. In December, Dr. John L. Creech, a Louisville, Kentuck surgeon who is plant physician for B.F. Goodrich's ma sive PVC installation there, received a report that one < the workers had died of angiosarcoma of the liver. R membering that another worker had died of the san cause two years earlier, he notified a superior. In ml January, 1974, while a systematic mortality study < Goodrich workers was being organized, Creech receiv< a report of a third angiosarcoma death. On January 2 B.F. Goodrich announced the three deaths and their caus To date, a total of eight persons employed at the Louisvil plant have been found to have contracted this disease. They blew the whistle themselves As of January, 1974, literally all the information lin ing vinyl chloride to cancer had been developed by t industry on its own initiative. As Ralph L. Harding J president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, cserved. "This is a unique situation. Industry financed t studies, and industry blew the whistle on itself." But this was quickly forgotten in the furor th arose during the weeks following B.F. Goodricl continued page i 200 FORTUNE October 1974 SL 0270^3 announcement. Within days, regulators, public-health doctors, and union officials had begun to dominate public discussion of the vinyl problem. Within weeks, the Louis ville Times initiated a series of stones alloying that in dustry had engineered a AVatergate-styie cover-up of the angiosarcoma discovery, which it abandoned only when it saw that the information was about to leak anyway. This charge was symbolic of the manner in which the initiative passed out of the hands of industry. It was seized, rapidly, by a loose but not uncoordinated network' of regulatory agencies, government research in stitutes, academic medical teams, labor unions, and other groups united by a common commitment to eradicate en vironmental causes of disease. This "regulatory-medical complex'' is largely the creation of a decade's federal legis lation in the medical and environmental fields. Its unoffi cial leader is Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, professor of community medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. The one-man power elite White haired, gracious, and preternaturally energetic, Selikoff is best known as the man who explored the haz ards of asbestos and who fought for many years to get them reduced. Cut a glance at his credentials shows him to hold so many other distinctions and positions that he constitutes a virtual power elite all by himself: a recipient |of the Albert Lasker Award of the American Public Health Association, he is also director of Mount Sinai's Environmental Sciences Laboratory, governor and past president of the New York Academy of Sciences, editor in chief of Environmmtal Research, president of the So ciety for Occupational and Environmental Health, and consultant to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. as well as to an almost end less list of medical organizations and government insti tutes. He seems personally ns well as professionally close to nearly everyone who matters in government occupa tional medicine, and has excellent contacts in the press, which he uses skillfully. Though he insists that he is only a scientist, Selikoff is also a crusader and reformer, and the weapons he takes into battle, aside from his many personal talents, are research and publicity. Within a month of B.F. Goodrich's announcement, half of Selikoff's staff was working on a series of medical and epidemiological studies of workers at three older PVC plants. Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health began an analysis of morbidity and mor tality in Goodrich's Louisville plant. The National Insti tute of Occupational Safety and Health, which does re search and standards development for OSHA, began a major epidemiological study of workers at four older plants, and together with OSHA sent out numerous teams to conduct "walk-through" inspections of PVC produc tion facilities across the nation. In May, Selikoff con vened in New York City a large international working 202 FORTUNE October 7974 group on vinyl chloride, held under the auspices of tin New York Academy of Sciences. As Dr. Joseph K. Wag oner of NIOSH described the position of the many re searchers who entered the field, " `Seek and ye shall find' is where we're sitting right now." What they found was a great deal of information that linked vinyl chloride ever more closely to a variety oJ diseases, and this information in turn generated news paper copy. To an attentive reader, the cumulative im pression conveyed was of a hidden crisis slowly uncov ered. With each passing week, the discovery of yet another angiosarcoma case or the release of a new report seemed to show the crisis to be graver and more wide spread than it had been the week before. The tacit message was that industry had failed, and that govern ment would have to step in and do something fast. Federal regulators were quick to respond. By early February NIOSH and OSHA were actively at work on the problem of workplace exposure. (See the report on page 152.) By the beginning of April OSHA had issued an emergency temporary standard .of 50 ppm and in May it proposed "no detectable level" as a permanent standard. But during the summer, the plastics industry, which had maintained a low profile during the preceding months, reassumed the initiative under the leadership of S.P.L's Ralph Harding and Jerome H. Heckman. The burden of the industry position was that OSHA's pro posal was not required on medical grounds and was tech nically and economically unfeasible. In its place S.P.I. advocated a phased reduction to 10 ppm as an average and 25 ppm as a ceiling by 197G. The industry case was set forth in considerable detail and with much documentation during the OSHA hearings that began on June 25. Making policy in a desert It was clear at the hearings that, in the end, the vinyl chloride decision was going to be made in an informa tional desert relieved by only the most occasional oasis of knowledge. It was established that vinyl chloride causes cancer and other diseases. It was also established that, over the course of two decades, industry had re duced exposure levels in its plants by a factor of some thing like 50 without experiencing notable hardship or burdensome expense. But beyond that almost everything was uncertain. One large area of uncertainty concerns the shape of the so-called "dose response" curve for vinyl chloride between 0 and 50 ppm--the range within which, presum ably, OSHA will set the permanent standard. To date, no animal experiments have been completed at exposure levels below 50 ppm, and since historic exposure levels in most existing plants have been above that level, it is ex tremely unlikely that epidemiological studies can reveal anything about human response below the level. The data for Dow Chemical's Midland, Michigan, copolymer plant, continued page 203 SL 027044 where exposures have been monitored for upwards of a decade, are difficult to interpret, flow's own studies suppest no adverse health or mortality effects for workers at exposures below 200 ppm; however, Dr. SclikoiTs "roup reports a significant incidence of abnormal symptoms even among Dow workers. Where data are unsatisfactory, une must fall back on inference and theory--but these have proved even less satisfactory, and much more subject to dispute. At the theoretical level, there is disagreement over how cancer is caused. Advocates of the "no detectable level" argued for the so-called "one-hit" theory of cancer causation, which holds that there can be no such thing as a risk-free exposure to a carcinogen. The theory implies that any identifiable exposure to vinyl chloride is certain to cause angiosarcoma, at however low a rate. But there is another theory of cancer causation, which emphasizes the role of the body's immune system in com bating cancer. According to this theory, cancers appear when the immune system breaks down. If what a carci nogen does is to weaken the immune system, and if the weakening process requires a certain level of dose, then it is possible that there is a risk-free level of exposure. At the present time, there is no definitive way to evalu ate the truth of these competing models. Thus when OSHA chooses a standard, it will do so in almost total ignorance of the different rates of cancer and other dis eases to be expected at different exposure levels. The cost f approaching zero The agency will be just as uncertain about the other major point in dispute--the level below which it is not economically feasible for industry to reduce exposure. "No detectable level" advocates point to the huge ex posure decreases that industry has already achieved, to the fact that many producers got below 50 ppm soon enough after the emergency standards were issued on April 5, and that not a few were far below that. To many regulators, it seemed obvious that industry could get to a near-zei'O level if it really wanted to. Industry representatives argued vehemently that a nondetectable level simply could not be attained. "Even a system that doesn't leak, leaks," thundered Todd C. Walker, president of Firestone Plastics, at the OSHA hearings. The companies also argued that efforts to ap proach zero would be extremely expensive. Firestone, for instance, detailed every capital expenditure that would be necessary if it tried to reach "nondetectable" exposure levels and concluded that the total cost would equal the entire value of its existing plant. Even then, Firestone insisted, it would not ultimately achieve a "nondetectable" exposure and would be forced to go out of the plastics ^^msiness. By the end of the summer, it appealed that even the OSHA staff felt the standard might be unjustified. An August, 1974, report by the agency's Division of Program Evaluation and liesearch observed; "First, it is not idea that it is technically feasible to comply with the proposes standard without a shutdown of the entire vinyl chloral industry. Second, it is not clear from existing experiment;! and other historical data that a `no detectable level' suuu! ard is justified. And third, it is quite clear that complianv with the proposed standard will require substantia! cap itrd investments and lead times." They'd call it a sellout If these findings should lead OSHA 1o compromise-- to set an exposure standard of, say, 25 ppm--the agenc.\ should not expect to be praised for its moderation. It maj even be assailed for violating its charter. The Occupa tional Safety and Health Act of 1970 states that OSHA, in regulating toxic materials, "shall set the standard which most adequately assures, to the extent feasible, on the basis of rhe best available evidence, that no employee will suffer material impairment of health or functional capacity even if such employee has regular exposure . . . for the period of his working life." ^Members of the regulatory-medical complex would surely insist that a compromise was incompatible with these words--and would see it as an unprincipled sellout, sacrificing lives for dollars. Industry, meanwhile, is apt to view whatever level is allowed as an arbitrary interven tion, reflecting political emotionalism rather than reason. And whatever the level, it is hard to believe that the new vinyl chloride standard will do much to end the confusion and uncertainty that currently prevail in many different industries subject to regulatory power. The vinyl chloride hearings have made it clear that practically nobody in government, industry, or labor is willing to discuss these regulatory issues in trade-off terms. "We don't equate lives with dollars and cents--not at the Department of Labor," John Stender, Assistant Secretary of Labor in charge of OSHA, declares. Even spokesmen for industry seem unwilling to chal lenge Stender's formulation head-on. "If we know we're exposing our workers to a known health hazard, we get out of the business," says Dr. Ben Holder of Dow. In the course of the long argument about vinyl chloride stand ards, businessmen have shied away from asserting that some level of mortality might actually be "worth it." In stead, they have tried to smuggle some practical consid erations into the discussion by "pointing to problems of "engineering and economic feasibility"--as if feasibility were an absolute. One reason for the general reluctance to think in costbenefit terms is to be found in the language of the Occu pational Safety and Health Act itself. But another rea son lies in the ethos of the regulatory-medical complex, which has something more on its mind than the rate at which people get sick or die. It is committed as well to a larger conception of the good society. In this society the idea of health is central. Ever more continued page 204 SL 027045 FORTUNE October 197- 203 emote causes of disease would be eliminated. The role f medicine in this society would be different; it would no longer merely cure, but would actively redesign the environment and ways of living to prevent disease. In evitably, it would be a society in which doctors, by virtue of their expertise, possessed considerable power. The role of markets would be sharply curtailed, inasmuch as they often lead people to make decisions contrary to their best medical interests. In this sense the regulatory-medical complex is a political movement. As such it perceives in issues such as the vinyl chloride standard a symbolic im portance that transcends the particular merits involved. They don't like business And, of course, it is an antibusiness movement in its underlying commitment. American regulatory agencies seem to reflect the times in which they were founded; the new regulation was established in an era of intense con flict and hostility to business, and there is little prospect of the movement's suddenly acquiring another personali ty. For all its unattractive implications for regulatoryequity and consistency, this fact is not entirely without its redeeming aspects. By pressing industry hard, these agen cies will hasten economic modernization. It is clear that they have long since achieved immense success in raising health consciousness in industry and labor alike. As Dr. Ralph Langner, an industrial hygienist at Dow Chemical, says, "Vinyl chloride is to industrial hygiene what Rachel Carson was to the environmentalists." In any case, if Americans are now' going to assume the responsibility of deciding w'hat is a "socially acceptable risk," and thus of implicitly- putting a price on human life, surely it is desirable that the critical decisions not be left entirely' to business--or to any' one group or center of authority-. A process of indetex-minate struggle between business and antibusiness forces, yielding decisions more political than rational, seems preferable to a system in which a single cooperative establishment coolly announces the exact going rate at the close of every business day-. Even so, it seems clear that the process of conscious ness-raising could usefully flow in the other direction as well. The regulatory-medical complex would not be any the worse if it had a clearer sense of the novelty of the concept of health it is promulgating and of the uneasiness of its relationship to the existing economic system. And it could take more fully to heart the potential conse quences of its regulatory interventions for ordinary liv ing standards. As G.J. Williams, vice president of Dow Chemical, remarked recently, "You could probably not find a single thing in the world that's essential, but they all go towards making life pleasurable. You can do with out almost anything, but not without everything." end The Bounded Main continued from page 131 cooperation. Ironically, there's a good chance that the U.S, will be leading the trend to unilateral action. Interpretations of innocence Because of the diversity of its inter ests in the sea, the U.S. had been expect ed to play a keystone role in locking to gether a compromise among all the di vergent points of view represented at Caracas. In fact, however, the confer ence was one of the first manifestations of a remarkable reversion in the inter national posture of the U.S. From a pre occupation with the politics of peace, we have moved to a preoccupation with re sources and revenues. The clash between this new U.S. stance and the ideological preoccupations of the less-developed nations brought the sea-law negotiations to a standstill at Caracas. To be sure, American economic con cerns originally began the erosion of the freedom-of-the-seas principle. In 1945, President Truman unilaterally de clared the U.S. to be sole owner of the mineral resources on its underwater continental shelf, where oil and gas had recently been discovered. This move was quickly followed by a rash of unilateral claims by other nations, not merely to offshore resources but also to territorial waters wider than the traditional three miles. In most cases, the new limits f were set at twelve miles, but some coun tries, beginning with several in Latin America, claimed absolute sovereignty over areas extending as much as 200 miles to sea. At that point, the U.S. woke up to what it had set in motion, in particular the implications for shipping and avia tion. Traditional maritime law recog nizes the right of "innocent passage" through any nation'3 territorial waters but has always been vague as to what the term meant. With the advent of new kinds of traffic, including airplanes, mis sile submarines, nuclear-powered ships, and supertankers, various states have adopted their own interpretations of innocent passage--such as prohibiting aircraft overflights, requiring advance notification of warship passage, making submarines travel on the surface, or forbidding passage to tankers in order to avoid the danger of oil spills. Planners in sore straits When combined with the almost worldwide adoption of territorial limits greater than three miles, these con straints on innocent passage had serious implications for all maritime nations, but they especially worried the U.S. Navy and its Soviet counterpart. The heart oi the problem was the "straits issue": with even twelve-mile limits, more thar 100 important international straits fal entirely within national jurisdiction Cold-war military planners were ap palled by the prospects of emergenc; ship and aircraft deployments being heh up by* a straits nation or of ballistic missile submarines being obliged t< SL 027046 Hi, Coal Mines UMW WINS MAJOR SAFETY CONCESSIONS FROM SOFT COAL MINE OPERATORS GROUP The United Mine Workers of America won four major concessions from soft coal mine operators in reaching a preliminary accord with the Bituminous Coal Operators Association in bargaining sessions held in Washington, D.C. The tentative agreement, involving economic and safety factors and job rights, must be approved by the UMW bargaining council and then ratified by the 120,000 miners of the union. There are indications that the bargaining council, meeting now in Washington, D.C., is unhappy with some of the accords reached in the areas of job rights and pay, a un ion spokesman told OSHR. The spokesman declined to predict when the current strike by the UMW will be ter minated. The safety accords reached between the UMW and BCOA are: Guaranteed right of an individual miner to withdraw from an unsafe workplace. Company-paid safety training for union safety comn^teemen. ^ftuaranteed access to the mine by UMW safety officials. ^Company-paid full inspection of the mines four times a year. General Policy VINYL CHLORIDE STANDARD IS FEASIBLE, STENDER TELLS CELLULAR PLASTICS MEETING The vinyl chloride exposure standard is "sensible, reasonable, feasible, and fair, and provides the needed protection for working men and women exposed to hazards"' associated with VC, Assistant Labor Secretary John H. Stender told a session of the plastics industry in Washington, D.C., on November 18. Developing health standards is the single greatest challenge facing the Occupational Safety and Health Ad ministration at this time, Stender said, addressing the Cellular Plastics Conference sponsored by the Society of the Plastics Industries, Inc., He noted there is resistance to the way the law is enforced, where and when it is enforced, and how much it is enforced, not so much to enforcement itself. "Standards are only words printed on paper. They lack the power to save a single life, to prevent a single job injury, unless they are backed by an effective enforcement program and an equally effective program of voluntary compliance," he said, adding, "let me assure you that both have top priority at OSHA." Proposed Penalties ^Bert D. Moran, chairman, Occupational Safety and H^mh Review Commission, said penalties proposed by the Labor Department "have no force and effect once a citation is contested," and judges must make their own deter minations in regard to appropriate penalties. More often than not penalties are reduced or vacated, he said, noting employers have only themselves to blame if there is dis agreement with citations or penalties and available remedies are not sought. He said fears of the oppressive broadness of the general duty clause were, to some extent realized, but general duty citations have been minimized of late. Moran said there should be a provision for compensation to those whose citations are dismissed or vacated. i j I Vinyl Chloride UNIROYAL, B.F. GOODRICH EMPLOYEES STRIKE, SEEK HAZARD PAY FOR VC WORK A one-week work stoppage at the Uniroyal. Inc., plant in Painesville, Ohio, was ended pending negotiations by the company and the United Rubber Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers Local 553. The employees involved, in spite of a no-strike provision in their contract which does not expire until April 1976, walked out seeking a wage increase as vinyl chloride hazard pay and a change in working conditions. Negotiations are continuing. B.F. Goodrich Company has asked a Kentucky circuit court to dismiss two vinyl chloride suits filed by employees. The employees were denied claims by the state workmen's compensation board and had filed suit against B.F. Goodrich Company. The company maintained that the employees fail ed to abide by the compensation board rules and the suits should be dismissed. VC Victim Another worker with angiosarcoma of the liver has been diagnosed at the B.F. Goodrich plant in Louisville. This ninth victim is 43 years old, has been with Goodrich for 19 years, and had worked as a reactor cleaner. The angiosarcoma was diagnosed, reportedly accidentally, when the worker was hospitalized with an unrelated illness. He had undergone two liver scans previous to his hospitalization and normal results were reported. j '> j j SL 027047 ?BmJJrL, %bAhfruz 7&ft*. * 3***.'fo- %r*y*? Current Report Vinyl Chloride FINAL OSHA VC RULE WILL PERMIT 25 PPM EXPOSURE WITHOUT RESPIRATORS Until January 1,1976, employees in polymerization plants ex posed to concentrations of vinyl chloride less than 25 parts per million may decline to wear respirators, according to the final VC standard adopted by the Occupational Safety and Health Ad ministration. Assistant Labor Secretary John H. Slender told the National Safety Congress on October 1 that the permanent standard would be issued on October 4. Exposure to VC was limited to 50 ppm under an emergency temporary standard issued by OSHA (Current Report, April 11, p. 1411). The per manent standard proposed by OSHA would have prescribed a "no detectable level" (Current Report, May 9, p. 15291. The adopted standard specifies that no employee may be exposed to vinyl chloride at concentrations greater than one ppm over any eight-hour period or to more than five ppm for a 15-minute period. This exposure limit can be accomplished through use of personal protective equipment instead of con trol of the workplace. However, according to OSHA, "While exposures in excess of the permissible level do constitute a hazard, we believe that it is necessary to mitigate some of the problems associated with implementing a program of respiratory protection while employees are being fitted and trained in respirator use. and while other adjustments which may be required are implemented." The standard continues the current 50 ppm level until December 31, 1974, to assist employers in meeting the new levels. Three-Phase Plan The permanent standard will operate as a three-phase progression between October 4, 1974, and January l. 1976. Reductions of exposures to these levels will be made through feasible engineering and work practice controls. Where the measures will not reduce levels enough, the standard will permit reductions to the lowest practicable level with employee respiratory protection to meet the one ppm and five ppm limits. Beginning January 1, 1976, the wearing of respirators will be mandatory for workers exposed to the one and five ppm limits. Until the January date, the wearing of respirators is discretionary for exposures under 25 ppm. Stender told a news conference at the congress that the delay in the effective date for mandatory use of respirators for exposure above one ppm is due to the shortage of equip ment and the need for approval of new equipment. Standard Provisions Provisions of the new standard require that employers must: Set up areas where concentrations of VC exceed the one and five ppm limits with access limited to "authorized workers." Forbid contact by workers with VCM in liquid form. Initiate monitoring and measuring programs to leam whether exposure levels exceed 0.5 ppm. Require new measurements for any change that may alter exposure levels. Require a continuous monitoring and alarm system where regular monitoring program shows excursion levels may exceed 25 ppm. Give workers and their representatives a "reasonable opportunity" to observe monitoring and measuring. FTovide protective garments and respiratory protec tion to workers in hazardous situations, such as cleaning operations in PVC vessels. Prepare plans for emergency situations such as acciden tal release at high levels. Train workers on topics such as the nature of the hazard, protective measures, etc. Conduct proper medical surveillance. Medical programs must include complete initial examinations. Subsequent ones will be required every six-months for workers who have worked with PVC for 10 or more years. Require signs or labels at entrances to regulated areas, hazardous operations, containers of PVC resin waste, PVC containers, and VCM containers. Require maintenance of medical records and rosters of authorized workers to be kept for specified time limits or sent to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health if an employer goes out of busimess before expiration of the retention period. Submit reports to the nearest OSHA area director not later than one month after establishing a "regulated area, and within 24 hours of any emergency exposure. There are 36 polyvinyl chloride plants employing 5,600 workers, 14 monomer plants, employing 940 workers, and 7,500 fabrication plants employing 350,000 workers, accor ding to Stender. Federal Agencies PRESIDENT FORD SIGNS NEW EXECUTIVE ORDER ON FEDERAL WORKER SAFETY -- HEALTH A revised Executive Order on federal worker safety and health was signed by President Ford on September 28. Executive Order 11807, "Occupational Safety and Health Programs for Federal Employees," was issued to strengthen the Government's commitment to provide "exemplary" working conditions for federal workers. It supersedes Executive Order 11612 issued in 1971. Secretary of Labor Peter J. Brennan announced the sign ing of the NEW Executive Order at a speech given to the National Safety Congress' Federal Safety Conference on September 30 in Chicago, 111. "The new Executive Order has teeth in it. And it is clearcut in its division of responsibilities," Brennan said. Worker Guideline* Brennan noted that issuance of the Executive Order is tied closely to guidelines for federal worker safety and health. The proposed guidelines originally appeared in the Federal Register last September (Current Report, October 4, p. 581). Since issuance, the guidelines were revised to bring them into agreement with the new Executive Order. Brennan said that they will be issued soon and that "agency heads will be required to observe these and any future guidelines issued by the Labor Department." According to Brennan, the guidelines cover five areas: (1) recording and reporting injuries, illnesses, and acci- Copyright 1974 by Thr Bureau of National Affair*. Inc, SL 027048