Document MGLwr72p53Y4L0rX6E134qawj

HILL AND KNOWLTON, Inc. Less Vinyl Chloride Exposure Is Opposed DANVILLE, VA. BEE D. 17,000 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The to close immediately, resulting plastics industry warns that in the loss of 1.6 million jobs at proposed government rules to a cost to the economy of $65 drastically reduce workers' ex billion. posure to a cancer-causing Labor Secretary Peter J. chemical could mean the loss Brennan, in a statement issued of 1.6 million jobs. before the hearing, did not This was one of the points to comment on the industry's be made by the industry during claim of lost jobs. a week-long public hearing "The purpose of this hearing opening today at the Labor De this week is to elicit additional partment. information from those in the The department's Occupation industry -- employers and em al Safety and Health Adminis ployes -- and others concerning tration has proposed permanent the hazards from exposure to restrictions that would limit air vinyl chloride, the best means levels of vinyl chloride in of protection and the impact of plants to less than one part per the proposed standard," Bren million, or too small to be de nan said. tected. The current emergency The industry argues that standard is^SO parts per mil while it favors reducing work lion. . ers' exposure "to as low a level Vinyl chloride, the foundation as possible," the proposed for much of the modem plas standard is impossible to tics industry, is the center of a achieve with today's engineer growing worldwide controversy ing technology. over its potential health hazard Industry sources indicated to workers and possibly con that the industry will propose sumers. an exposure level below the The government imposed the current temporary level of 50 temporary emergency standard parts per million, but some after the discovery earlier this what above the government's year that exposure to vinyl proposed zero level. .chloride may be a cause of a rae form of liver cancer known as'-* angiosarcoma. The B. F. Goodrich Co. dis closed in January that four 'workers at its vinyl chloride conversion plant in Louisville, JUN251974 On Yimjl 4'hlovhl*' Industry Urges Kedneing Controls By DAVIl) IIF.SS e.ieon Jot*rn| washingtui Rurtaif WASHINGTON - Warning of industry shutdowns if strict controls on vinyl chloride ore ndopled, n spokesman for the plastics makers Tuesday called for a phased reduction of vinyl chloride particles in the air in their plants. Anton Vitlono, president of B. F. Goodrich Chemical Co. and chairman of the Society of the Plastics Industry Vinyl Chloride committee, testified at the opening hearings on a Labor officals a! the hearings that "the proposed permanent standard is imt technological ly feasible and. if adopted, would shut down the indus try." It could cost as many as 2.2 million jobs, industry spokesman said. Prolonged exposure to vinyl elilci ide has been closely linked to a rare form of liver cancer, as well as to other or ganic diseases. Twenty-one deaths from liver cancer have struck vinyl chloride workers. Ky., died from the disease. Since then, 20 cases world-wide1 have been linked to workers at plants where the vinyl chloride gas is produced or converted into polyvinyl chloride. About 6.500 U S. workers are involved in making vinyl chlo . plC'piiS-'ti iicaUh and enfrty standard for vinyl chloride workers. Vitfpne asked Hie Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (UKHA) to phase in a new Wl. HIVING Seliknff, medi cal professor at Alt. Sinai: School ill Medicine in New York and a recognized au thority on industrial diseases, told liraiing examiners: "Clinical examinations of ride and turning it into poly vinyl chloride, a solid plastic used in countless products in cluding paints, pipes, floor tiles, toys, food packaging, phonograph records and cloth,ing. At first il was thought the danger involved only the work ers at the first stage of the manufacturing process but sci entists have now turned up evi dence indicating that as many s'andard over the next three years i other than put a per manent standard into effect 'this Fall. VNDI-iR an existing emer gency standard set in April AKRON BEACON JOURNAL bvOSIIA, vinyl chloride mak ers must keep the chemical AKRON, OHIO level-; down to 50 paits per I). 175,458 sun. 203,118 million. Labor union officials and In 3.11 workers exposed lo vinyl chloride . . . demonstrated a significant prevalence of liver abnormalities, peripheral vas cular (vein) changes and lung ahnormalilics. The latter may reilec! exposure to polyvinyl rhloride dust, rather than to the monomer gas." Pr. H. F. Krayhill, a staffer at the Naiienal Career Insti :as 700.000 workers could be ex dus) rial hygienists urged tute, test-died that experi posed to the danger. A total of 95 witnesses, repre senting government, the medi cal community and' the big plastics and chemical manufac turers. have asked to testify at the hearings. The Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. contends that if JUN 26 1974 'OSHA to stick to a proposed ments wilh rats, mice ar '4 permanent standard, to go hamsters hy the Mamifaciut into effect in October, of "no ing Chemists Associalion als| delectable level" of vinyl linked vinyl rhloride to livd chloride in factory working cancers at relatively low lev spaces. els of concentration in thg Vittone told Department of air. o the government's proposed "no detectable level" is adopted. crr>rrc of r!nnc hr fororH BFG24389