Document LgrmnznDYEGj88QVgZODbxVqb

MANUFACTURING CHEMISTS ASSOCIATION 1825 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, D. C. 20009 (202) 483-6126 August 13, 1974 '0 ' To: Technical Task Group on Vinyl Chloride Research Subject: Senate Hearings on Vinyl Chloride Gentlemen: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Subcommittee on the Environment, has scheduled one day of overview hearings on vinyl chloride, Wednesday, August 21. We are informed that the hearings will be chaired by Senator John Tunney, who conducted the hearings on the Toxic Substances Control bill last year. Dr. T. R. Torkelson will appear as a witness for MCA; his testimony will focus on the industry research programs, past, present and planned, that MCA has been involved in. At this time, the other organizations or individuals that are scheduled to appear are: Environmental Protection Agency, National Cancer Institute, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, Dr. Irving Selikoff, and the Society of the Plastics Industry. The hour and place of the hearings have not yet been announced. Sincerely, KDJ/mb Kenneth D. Johnson, Ph.D. Secretary Technical Task Group on Vinyl Chloride Research 0000182 ASl Monday, August it, M4 TflE WASHINGTON POST Cancer, Death Rates Found High In Little Elk Valley Leonard Madison, left, a former foreman at the Galaxy plant, died of career in early August. By Bill Richards Washington Post Staff Writer PROVIDENCE, Md.--No one is quite sure why, but for the past few years the people of tile Little Elk Valley here have been dyin, off at an alarming rate. Since 1967, 20 of the 120 people who have lived here for move than two years have died, recording to a study of the Little Elk's popu lation by a local doctor. The ages of those who died range from 5 to 70. That figure puts the death rate for the valley about 2.2 limes ahead of the rest of surrounding Cecil County, in the northern corner of the state. More ominous. Dr. Pietro U. Capurro's tabu lation shows that at least eight of those deaths, and possibly more, have been from cancer, making.the cancer death rate here seven times tlie rest of the county's 53,000 residents. The county's cancer rate is above average for rural areas in the U.S., according to statisticians from the National Cancer Institute. Suspicion concerning the valley's unusually high death and cancer levels has been com pounded by several types of cancers identified here by Capurro, a 49-year-old pathologist and director of the laboratory at Union Hospital in nearby Elkton. The cancers--lymphomas, leukemia and pan creas cancer--have all been linked in the past in various studies and by medical researchers to exposure to certain industrial chemicals. Exposure to certain industrial chemicals can lead to cancer that possibly may not appear for 10 or more years, according to National Can cer Institute specialists. All of the cancer victims described in Capur ro's report lived within a mile of the Little Elk Valley's only industrial plant--The Gal axy Chemical Company, which has been re processing chemicals here since 1961. Paul J. Mraz, the president of Galaxy, des cribed Capurro's findings as "unsubstantiated" and "nothing new" during a short telephone interview recently. Mraz declined to comment further on the doctor's report or allow a reporter to tour the plant and conduct a lengthier in-person inter view, "I can't make any further comment on the advice of my attorney," he said. During the last four years a number of resi dents including Capurro, who lived in the valley for four years until 1972. complained that chemical fumes from the plant had made them ill. Samples of the air around the Galaxy plant, taken by investigators for the Maryland bureau of air quality control after complaints in 1970 and 1971, showed the presence of about 25 chemicals in the valley's air and water that were foreign to the area but that matched a list of chemicals handled by the plant, accord ing to Carl York, head of the bureau's com pliance section. One of the chemicals repeatedly identified in the samples, York said, was benzene, a substance that Mraz recently acknowledged his AS I 000018201 DR. PIETRO CAPURRO ... tabulates death data At right is some of the equipment at the plant, which reprocesses chemicals. firm had 'wndled in the past ant's that lie said is still be ing reprocessed at the plant. Dr. Herman Kraybill, sci entific coordinator for envi Neither Capurro nor any ronmental carcinogens other researcher has specifi (cancer-causing substances) cally linked the chemicals at The National Cancer In found in the valley with the sulate, said benzene is cancer deaths there. . Ca strongly suspected by re purro, however, said the searchers of being linked to findings show a strong need leukemia in some persons for more testing of the plant exposed to the chemical. and the valley's past and Carbon tetrachloride, which Kraybill said has been fnufid to produce liver tumors in laboratory rats, present residents, Capurro says he has per formed his own tests on air and water samples as well mice and hamsters, was as on blood samples from found in other samples persons living near the taken in the valley by Ca- plant. purro. The laboratory re "I can't say that the sults with carbon tetrachlo deaths In the valley from ride, Kraybill said, "raises a cancer were the result of high index of suspicion as to specific exposure to chemi its human potential." cal fumes," he said. Capurro is not alone in Leonard Madison, an exhis belief that something is foreman at the plant who wrong medically in the val died recently, and a second ley. State and federal inves former supervisor who tigators who have been asked not to be identified, there said that the physical said they witnessed occa condition of a number of sions when workers flushed residents there is unusual. out chemical tanks and tank "We know there's some trucks at the plant into the thing up there in the valley Little Elk River nearby. that's not right, some sort of (Madison was interviewed a health problem," said shortly before nis death York of the state bureau of from throat cancer. air quality control, "What The state ordered the we don't know is whether waste pit shut down and it's coming from Galaxy." Galaxy was directed t./ a York worked for eight Cecil County Court judge in months in 1967 and 1968 as early 1971 to clean up its an engineer for Galaxy at -chemical emissions after it the Little Elk Valley plant was cited for air pollution and is now responsible for violations. inspecting it and conducting The plant was allowed to air sampling in the valley. reopen by the judge in May Mraz recently told a re porter that his firm handled carbon tetrachloride for only one or two weeks in the late 1960s and does not handle the chemical any more. York said that some other chemicals discovered in the valley were so exotic that they could not be ade quately Identified and their toxicity was not known by researchers. "But there have been a lot of chemicals In that valley's air and water and the blood of those people we tested," he said, "and some of those chemicals cause cancer. And we know there are a lot more malignancies there than you would expect. "If you're in a room where everyone is scratched and there's a lion in there too, then you've got to sus pect the lion." He said that until 1971 the 1971, after the judge in company dumped residues structed the state to monitor from its reprocessing opera its emissions and report the tion into an open air evapo findings to him. ration pit behind the plant. York, however, said the Among the substances put state has done no air sam into the pit, he said, was the pling at the plant in more residue from the benzene re than a year and that the processing operation. company has been left to "We know that benzene monitor its own choice of was dumped into that pit," chemicals it handles at the said York, "and there were plant. several other chemicals we suspected were carcinogens. But the whole thing was such a gunky mess that it's AS I 000018202 questionable whether the company even knew what It was evaporating in there." i ,cancer Death Rates Found High mMd. Valley Both Mraz and Peter Nerger, head of the Mari sol Chemical Company, a Mid dlesex, N.J., firm that sup plies Galaxy with chemicals for reprocessing, refused In telephone conversations to disclose what chemicals the plant has handled recently. Krayblll, of the National Cancer, Institute, who has not'studied either the valley or its inhabitants, said expo sure to carcinogenic chemi cals did not mean that can cer would appear immedi ately. Cancer cases after such exposure, he said, of ten do not appear until years after exposure. The presence of the can-: eer types noted by Capurro,. and the Identification of chemicals found in past samplings of air "could pose a potential cancer problem which should be further studied by an epidemiologi cal investigator, KraybiU said, Galaxy's last problem with complainst concerning its chemical emissions oc curred in 1972 when a Caro line County judge awarded 10 residents of the valley, In cluding Capurro, a total of $34,932 after they filed suit complaining they were made 111 by the plant's fumes. Since then, residents near the plant who were Inter viewed recently by The Washington Post said they had not experienced any problem with fumes until this year. Several persons said they had been bothered by fumes this year In Janu ary, March and july. Olive Feelhy, who runs a general store with her hus band George about 190 yards west of the plant, said the fumes had become par ticularly powerful in recent weeks. "Three weeks ago," she said, "I noticed a bluish haze coming from the direc tion of the plant one morn ing. When I went out to bang my wash it was so strong that 1 collapsed and had to crawl back inside on my hands and knees." Nancy Chadwick, who lives on the east side of the mlant, said she too had nelled fumes recently. "They blow into the house and my whole family Just Starts coughing," she said. "Since they've started, we've been tired and dopey all the time." Rebecca Madison, who also lives in the valley, said several weeks ago she walked by the plant with her 1-year-old son, John PauL "We must have picked the wron# time because we got a good whiff of what ever it was they were doing in there," she said. "John Paul began throwing up right on the spot." "I want to got out of here," she said. "I don't know what they're doing in that plant but I don't want my son to grow up breath ing that stuff." Her father, Leonard Madi son, 90, worked for Galaxy for 11 years until he devel oped what was diagnosed 14 months ago as throat cancer. He died in early August. Interviewed just before his death, Madison said he was down from 175 pounds to 105. He was barely able to speak in a croaking rasp of a whisper and said he be lieved that a combination of cigarette smoking and inha lation of the fumes at the plant was responsible for his condition. "No one wore masks," he said. "The chemicals we'd breathe would burn our throats and make us sick but they kept telling us `it won't hurt you.' I believed them then and .now I know better. But it's too late for me now." Charles Dunlap, 22, a sec ond worker known to have developed cancer, died in 1971 after working for Gal axy at the plant for 13 months. Capurro, who diag nosed the cancer with a nu clear scanning process, said he died of cancer of the pan creas. Mraz said the man had "stomach trouble" be fore be was hired, but did not know if the man had cancer before he was hired. No outside agency has conducted a medical investi gation of the dozen or so workers now at the plant or an any of the plant's past employees, state air quality official York said. Mraz re fused to tell a reporter whether bis company has undertaken medical cheeks on present or past employ ees. Madison. York and others who worked for Galaxy said turnover at the plant has been high. A number of the workers there have been sent to Galaxy from the Maryland state employment office in Elkton. State offi cials said there is no re quirement that the employ ment office notify workers that they may be handling dangerous* chemicals. Turnover in the valley also has been high in recent years. Capurro said that 60 per cent of the population living around the plant had either moved away or died since 1967. Capurro. identified eight of the dead as cancer vic tims, using hospital records, state and county informa tion, his own records and in terviews with the relatives of the dead persons. Two other deaths, he said, may have involved persons who had cancer but died of other causes. All of the cancer victims, who ranged in age from 5 years old to 70, lived less than a mile from the plant and had been exposed to the valley's air for at least two years. Only one, a part-time painter, had any other expo sure to chemicals, the doc tor said. Last year, Capurro sent the results of his findings and the previous reports on chemicals in the valley to Dr. N. E. Day, a highly re garded biostatistician for the World Health Organiza tion's International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, Prance. Day wrote back in Febru ary of this vear that he noted an unusually high in cidence of lymphomas and pancreatic tumors in Capur ro's findings and that Ihese two types of tumors are in creasingly being found among chemists, "In a population of 120, over seven years, you would expect .068 lymphomas and .067 pancreas tumors," Day wrote. " "The probability of ob serving two pancreas tumors by chance Is about .006," Day continued, "and of ob serving the four lymphomas is less than .000001, i.e. very small." Dr. Sidney Cutler, a bios tatistician and chief of the biometry branch of the Na tional Cancer Institute, said during an interview that he had no knowledge of the ac curacy of Capurro's raw data. "But," he said, "if we're talking about a population as small as he (Capurro) re ports, and in such a limited number of years, theresdits certainly look unusual." Both York and Capurro said they have requested a study of the conditions in the valley and of its past and present residents by an outside federal agency. Such investigations of plants where workers have been believed exposed to carcinogenic chemicals have usually been handled by the National Institute for Occu pational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a federal investi gative agency under the De partment of Health, Educa tion and Welfare. NIOSH sent Dr, Carey Young, one of its investiga tors, to the Little Elk Valley in March. Young inter viewed Capurro and left af ter the interview without checking the plant or the valley's residents and has not returned since. "It was a preliminary in terview," he said in a tele phone interivew from NIOSH headquarters in Cin cinnati, "We have other pri orities taking our manpower and time. Wc feci some as pects of the valley's situa tion are interesting, though, and we may consider some kind of contractual study for a full evaluation some time in the future." Such vague promises of attention have done little to ease the fears of people like Olive Feelhy, who counts off on her fingers the names of her neighbors who have died recently and repeats the details of each death for visitors to her store. "This used to be a place where people died of old age and you'd go years with out a funeral sometimes," she said. "Good Lord, nowa days I spend more time in the funeral parlor than I do in my own home." AS I 000018203