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H [ L L a.xii K.NTOVLTOX. fa-c: THE 'WASHINGTON P(,)ST i;.. Job-Caused Cancers Are Found Spreading to Workers9 Families By Stuart Auerbach Washington Post Staff Writer NEW YORK, March 24Two hundred years after the first documented cases of occupationally caused can: cers, scientists are finding j that the hazards of the work ! place are spreading to the i families of workers and peo! pie who live near certain ; factories. ! Asbestos workers, Dr. | Ii. A. Anderson reported to! day. carrying fibers home in ; clothing and hair, spread j cases of fatal lung cancers and lung abnormalities to tneir wives and children. Studying the families of 354 asbestos workers, Ander son and his team from Mt. Sinai Medical School here | found that 35 per cent of | them showed lung abnor! malities on X rays compareI bie to men who had worked ! in asbestos factories, , Moreover, while studying : death certificates of 252 1 members of the families of asbestos workers, he found two deaths from mesotheli oma, a rare form of lung cancer that occurs about once in 10,000 deaths among the general population but kills about one in 20 asbes tos workers. He cited similar findings in 10 foreign countries. "The risk goes beyond the fac tory, mine or mill gate," he said. "We now know that the wives, children and relatives of many asbestos workers have died of mesothelioma and others will do so also as a result of the practice of asbestos carried into the home on workers' clothes or in some other manner," added Dr. Joseph K. Wag oner, head of field studies for the National Institute of Occupational. Health and Safety, a federal agency. Dr. Irving J. Selikoff of Mt Sinai hospital, one of the nation's leading experts on occupational illness, called the spread of occupa tional illness to families "a general rule. It's not a curi osity. It's a common thing." As examples, Selikoff and Wagoner cited studies showing: . Autopsy findings that 100 per cent of people who live in cities have asbestos fibers in their lungs, gotten mainly from breathing air near construction sites. People who live near or chards where there has been a large amount of spraying with lead arsenate insecti cide have 20 per cent more cases of lung cancer than would be expected from the general population. Children who live near copper smelters in Takoma, Wash., have unusually high levels of arsenic in their blood and urine, which could foretell future case* See HEALTH, A10, CA % t t% AS I 00022705 Page 2 D. Kitagawa Model 400 Aspirating Pump (Matheson PN 8014-400) has been certified for use with 8. Hydrogen sulfide - Model 120b gas detector tube, TC-84-037, July 23, 1974. 9. Carbon monoxide - Model 100 gas detector tube, TC-84-045, January 15, 1975. III. RESPIRATORY PROTECTIVE DEVICES The following respiratory protective devices have been approved by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration, and the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, since July 19, 1974. Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus 18. SurvivAir part numbers 9038-00, 9038-02, 9838-00, and 9S38-Q2 demand-type one half hour compressed-air self-contained breathing apparatus. Approval TC-13F-44, issued to SurvivAir Div., U.S. Divers Co., August 30, 1974. 19. SurvivAir part numbers 9038-20, 9038-22, 9838-20, and 9838-22 pressure demand-type one-half hour compressed-air self-contained breathing apparatus. Approval TC-13F-45, Issued to SurvivAir Div., U.S. Divers Co., August 30, 1974. 20. MSA part numbers 457150, 95061, 457151, and 95068 demand-type 15 minute compressed-air self-contained breathing apparatus. Approval TC-13F-46, issued to Mine Safety Appliances Co., January 10, 1975. C )21. MSA''b-*' part numbers 95063 and 460262 pressure-demand type 15 minute compressed-air self-contained breathing apparatus. Approval TC-13F-47, Issued to Mine Safety Appliances Co., January 10, 1975. Gas Masks 3. MSA part numbers 461481, 461482, 461483, 461484, 461485, and 461486 gas masks (with part number 461480 canister) for respiratory protection against vinyl chloride. Approval TC-14G-84, Issued to Mine Safety Appliances Co., December 30, 1974. 4. Scott part numbers 601211-17 and 601221-17 gas masks (with part number 084-VCL canister) for respiratory protection ag inst vinyl chloride. Approval TC-14G-85, issued to Scott Aviati n, December 30, 1974 AS I 00022660  t- CVl < Job-Caused Cancers Seen Hit HEALTH, From AI of cancers. "Why wait 20 years to see if cancer shows up before cleaning up the air?1' said Dr. Samuel Mil- ham Jr. of the Washington State Department of Health, who conducted that study. People living within a quarter mile of a beryllium processing plant near Phila delphia are dying of berylli osis. a lung disease similar to black lung in coat min ers. Wives of workers living further away from the plant died as a result of inhaling the dust from the beryllium, a light-weight metal, while washing their husbands' clothing. In another paper present ed at a meeting here on oc cupational carcinogenesis (cancer caused by work) sponsored by the New York Academy of Science, Dr. Pe ter F. Infante of the Ohio State Department of Health reported that mothers liv ing near plants making poly vinyl chloride gave biftfi to a'greater number of defec- live children than the state or county average. The same communities in Ohio also had a greater than expected incidence of deaths among adult men from cancers of the nervous system. Dr. Thomas H. Corbett of the University of Michigan Medical Center also report ed an unusually high rate of birth defects among chil dren of operating room nurses who worked while pregnant and children of wives of anesthesiologists. He implicated some of the gases, especially isoflurane, used as anesthesia. He said the gas may cause changes in male sperm. In a speech opening the four-day meeting Wagoner said that 200 years after Per cival Pott, an English doc tor, reported an increase in cancer of the scrotum among chimney sweeps in London as a result of breathing carbon products from (he burning of coai, thou sands of coke oven workers in American steel mills are inhaling the same sub- ASI 00022707 } )een Hitting Families gases. especially isoflurane, stances, They are dying of He said that American ) used as anesthesia. He said the gas may cause changes lung cancer at 15 times the rate of the general popula dye workers "are literally sloshing" in chemicals known as aromatic amines i in male sperm. tion. he said. that were found to cause * in a speech opening the In 1971, he continued, cancer 30 years ago. "As a r four-day meeting Wagoner decades after Studies result," spid Wagoner, said that 200 years after Per- showed that miners in ther "these workers are now, and cival Pott, an English doc- Erz mountains of Central will continue to be, afflicted i tor, reported an increase in Europe were dying of lung by bladder tumors at an epi cancer of the scrotum cancers blamed on radioac demic rate. ; among chimney sweeps in tivity, "thousands of Ameri "As recently a* 1974,'* he London as a result of breath- can uranium miners were continued, "50 per cent of t ing carbon products from still working in radiation former employees at one i the burning of coal, thou- concentrations of such mag benzidine plant in the sands of coke oven workers nitude as to triple their pro United States were reported in American steel mills are spects of dying of Jung can to have developed bladder ; inhaling the same sub cer.'' cancer." Post Cancer: A Work Hazard Industry Is Forced to Face By Stuart Auerbach Washington Post Staff Writer NEW YORK--Now there is no doubt: Cancer is a haz ard of the workplace. For four days last week, representatives of industry, government, labor unions and science heard reports implicating more and more substances used in industry -- including such common metals as aluminum, cad mium and lead--as cancercausing agents. Moreover, new studies showed that workers in industries previ ously thought to be free of jncer-oauslng agents--such steel mills and saw mills --have increased rates of cancer. Although reports linking cancer with certain occupa tions have been around for 200 years, this was the first meeting devoted solely to that problem. "Until now," said Dr. Ed ward P. Radford of Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and.. Public Health, "society as a whole, industry in general, labor unions in particular have not accepted the notion that things in the workplace can cause cancer." Documented cases of can cer caused by industrial pol lutants were considered "few and unusual situalinns," he continued, "By and large, when you proposed that something in ' be workplace is producing < encer, the reaction you got was: `It must be something f'lse . . . smoking, or iPs in fcm community. But it's" not Pmats in the workplace." This was the common reac tion. "We are now finding that a lot of things In the work place can cause cancer." One thing that came clearly through four days of reports on cancer-causing chemicals is that the world --and especially America-- is now paying a price for the great number of chemi cal compounds that have been introduced since World War II. Asbestos, one ,of the most potent cancer-causing agents, was rarely used be fore the 1940s. Until then, the total production of as bestos in the world was 50 million tons; now that much is produced in just one year. Other commonly used chemicals--such as chloromethyl methyl ether" (CMME), its relative, bischloromethyl ether (BCME) and polyvinyl chloride-- weren't identified as cancercausing agents until 20 to 30 years after they came into widespread use. This illustrates the long latency period of cancer. 'Unlike other illnesses, it takes 15 to 30 years to de velop in the body. "To prevent cancer in the year 2000," said Dr. Irving J. Selikoff of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, "we have to identify the problem chemi cals in 1975." Dr. Lorenzo Tomatis of the International Agency for research oB Cancer in Lyon, France, reported that his group has studied 198 commonly used chemical cupational cancer comes compounds and found 17 of from counting dead bodies. them linked to cancer in hu We would hope to identify mans. Another 93 were the carcinogen earlier in the found to have caused cancer game." in animals, and 41 more had what he described as "a lim ited cancer-causing effect' on animals. To help protect workers from suspected cancer-caus ing agents, sponsors of the conference are taking an un Of the 17 chemicals usual step: summarizing the known to cause cancer in proceedings in non-techni- humans, Tomatis said 14 are cal, everyday language for hazards of the wor.kplacg. distribution to people in the The others are either eaten factories. 1 or used medicinally, such as the hormone stilbestrol re cently approved as a morn ing-after birth control pill. In the past, said Dr. Sid- 1 ney Wolfe of Ralph Nader's Health Research Group, this information was kept But with all the new In a tight little circle of chemical compounds being "academic, industry and introduced--one . govern government scientists who ment source estimated 250,- have usually waited as long 000 new substances are syn as possible to share their in thesized each year--it is al formation with the workers. most impossible to catch up "I am sick of hearing, "we with the backlog. Animal shouldn't tell them because tests for cancer take years, it will scare them,' " Wolfe though a new, quick screen continued. ing method using bacteria "The workers, who are re has been developed by Drs. ally the victims of what we Joyce McCann and Bruce N. are talking about, have to be Ames of the University of made part of the risk assess California at Berkeley. ment." Until those systems are Tomatis, of the Interna perfected, however, the only tional Agency for Research on sure proof that something Cancer, said manufacturing' causes cancer is to wait 15 improvements can cut com-! or 20 years and then count pletely or drastically reduce! the dead bodies. the occupational exposure of "One of the most discour the workers. aging things about' this "These improvements," he meeting,'' said Dr. J. Wil said, "do not represent, in liam Lloyd of the National general, too severe a blow to Institute for Occupational the economy of the factory, Safety and Health,- "is that but just a marginal loss of most of what we know of oc profit," AST 00022708 J., . ,x j; ' Uu.ii'i. t- i i: I, I ^f)u Po?it Checks Employe Health Records fact, carcinogenic Implications in this prod-] uct." There are on estimated 2,500 neoprene i workers and a larger number of workers] After Studies Link Chemical With Cancer who fabricate neoprene into various prod- j ucts in the U.S. Pr- >- Chloroprene has been known to be highly toxic almost since Its commercial introduc By Barry Kramer ployes and 600 retirees whose records could tion by Du Pont in 1936 and has caused, Staff fieporter of The Walt. Street Journal be obtained easily failed to show any signifi among other things, liver, lung ar.d kidney Du Pont Co. contirmedl3IaF it is search- cant increase in cancer. The study did find damage in humans. The Russian reports are Ing the health records of ail present and for- an increase in lung cancer in 1912 and 1973, the first to link it*1 with cancer, however. i ! mer employes at its Louisville, Ky., neo but cases weren't found in 1974. leading offi Known industrial carcinogens, such asi prene plant because of two Russian studies cials to conclude that the findings had been vinyl chloride and asbestos, usually have a j that found high rates of skin and lung can spurious. latency period of about 20 years after first | ' cer among workers who handle chloroprene, the materia] from which neoprene is made. Disclosure of this and other actions being taken by Du Pont, the major maker of the synthetic-rubber material, was made by a representative of the National Institute for Following meetings with the institute and other government health agencies, Du Pont decided to do a more extensive survey of its employes. Dr. IJoyd of the institute said present and former employes at the plant, which has operated since 1943, could num- exposure before the first excess cases of] cancer begin showing up. Du Pont has also begun laboratory anl-j mal carcinogenicity tests, which would indi-i cate cancer-causing potential, if any, in aj much shorter time. Results aren't yet avall- Occupational Safety and Health at an indus trial-cancer conference in New York. Dr. William Lloyd of the institute told the con ference, sponsored by the New York Acad emy of Sciences, that a previous Du Pont survey of worker health, done mostly among current workers at the Louisville plant, hadn't confirmed the Russian findings and that the Soviet data was ``flimsy.'* ber as many as 60,000 persons. A Du Pont spokesman said the number is far smaller. Study Called Flawed Dr. Lloyd said the Russian study (made at a Yerevan, Soviet Armenia, plant built with Du Pont technology during World War II) was seriously flawed because it lacked a breakdown of the amount and duration of exposure, other chemicals that workers Other Conference Reports Other reports at the New York Indus trial-cancer conference include: -- Further confirmation, from Now York University Medical Center, that workers in j six of the seven U.S. chemical plants muk-j mg a resin called chloromethyl-meihyl etneri have a significantly increased risk of devel-i opihg respiratory cancer and tnat this ap- j Next to Vinyl-Chloride Plant were exposed to, smoking habits, a break plies especially to those with long and heavy, Nevertheless, a Du Pont spokesman said down by age and sex, ar.d other variables exposure to the cncmical. The re.sin is usu*, ^^Aree Du Pont officials are In Moscow this considered essential by U.S. biostatisticians ally contaminated with the potent esreino-; ^Week getting details of the studies from in evaluating such a study. gen bis-chloromethyl ether, or BCME. j Russian scientists. Du Pont said it had noti fied its workers and customers last Novem ber about the Russian findings and its doubts about them. The Russian studies also were turned over to the institute at that time, Du Pont said. The Du Pont neoprene facility is located, literally, right next door to the B. F. Good rich Co. vinyl-chloride plant where, last year, the first links between vinyl chloride Du Pont said it also warned its neoprene customers last November that levels of un reacted chloroprene monomer in neoprene could reach high levels In closed spaces. Neoprene is widely used in the automotive industry and in making cable sheaths, hoses, fabrics, adhesives and technical rub ber articles. U.S. production in 1973, much of it by Du Pont, was 385 million pounds, --Confirmation by the National Institute! for Occupational Safety and Health that it! had discovered spontaneous formation of BCME in some textile plants. The cancercausing chemical forms when mists of hy drochloric acid and formaldehyde mix. The] institute said it was investigating the extent | of textile-worker exposure to the chemical. I -A finding by the Ohio Department of! Health that suggests that women living in; and a rare liver cancer were found. Tight In addition to the Louisville facility, Du communities with polyvinyl-chloride inann-i restrictions on the level of vinyl-chloride ex Pont also produces neoprene at Laplace, facturing facilities give birth to an exccsj, posure in factories have since been imposed La., and makes chloroprene monomer from number of children with congenita! malfor-i by the Labor Department. chlorine and butadiene at Laplace and at mations, The findings don't make a direct! Both vinyl chloride, which Is a gas, and Victoria, Texas. link between the malformations and poly-j chloroprene, a colorless liquid, are chemical Chlorcr.'ene and neoprene also are made vinyl chloride, which is made from vinyl! monomers, from which plastics are poly by Petro-Tex Chemical Corp., Houston. A chloride, but the researchers who made the I merized in large vats. spokesman for Petro-Tex said that the findings said further studies were in order. | Du Pont said It began to look into the major western makers, including British . --A study from New York's Mount Sin:*iI Jcancer potential of chloroprene last year fol Petroleum Co. of Great Britain and Bayer Hospital found that wives and others in lowing the vinyl-chloride findings. But it A.G, of West Germany, as well as Du Pont, close contact with asbestos workers also| said a survey of 1.3C0 current Louisvtllo em- "are undertaking a serious look at the de may risk developing asbestos-caused lung! velopments published in Russia." J. P. cancer. They found lung changes associatedj Lockwood, president of Petro-Tex, said, with the disease in 35'',n of the 254 household i i * . ``We' re following very closely the actions of contacts of asbestos workers they exam-j Du Pont ... to determine if there 'are, in ned, and four cases of lung cancer. i eSI- AS I 00022709 --------- A-4 TheWashmgtonStar Timday, March 25,1975 Workers' Families Face Risks of Cancer, Too By Judith Randal Washington SUr Suff Writer NEW YORK-Not only do workers whose jobs expose them to hazardous chemi- als risk dying of cancer or developing other disabling chronic illnesses, but mem bers of their families and sometimes even their neighbors run these risks as well. At a meeting being held here this week by The New York Academy of Sciences, several such situations are under discussion and the consensus of the experts present is that, with some 20,000 new chemical com pounds a year being intro duced into the environment -- and millions already a part of it -- there are bound to be more. Yesterday, for example, Dr. Henry Anderson of the National Institute for Occu pational Safety and Health told the meeting that there is evidence from nine coun tries suggesting that a rare type of lung cancer that occurs among asbestos workers also attacks their wives, sons and daughters more often than one would expect. ANDERSON AND HIS colleagues at the agency, which is a part of the De partment of Health, Educa tion, and Welfare, have re cently undertaken a study of 1,064 men who were ex posed to asbestos at an unidentified U.S. factory between 1941 and 1954. In the years since then, two of the men have died of the rare cancer -- called' mesothelioma -- and so have two of their children. In addition, a man and a woman, also the children of asbestos workers in the study sample have been found to have the same kind of turner and are undergo ing therapy. Like most carcinogens, or cancer-causing sub stances, asbestos does not act at once, A lag time of 25 to 30 years is typical. Be sides, the tumors are un likely to appear before mid dle age. Thus, since many of the children of the work ers in his study are still under 50, they still have be fore them many years of high mesothelioma risk, Anderson said. Interviewed after his presentation, Anderson said that asbestos is by no means the only harmful chemical that may silently injure family members who live close to the factories where their breadwinners work or otherwise have contact with the job envi ronment. RELATIVES OF PEO PLE who work with polychlnrinntaA hiphonvis have been exposed to these sol vents when the men bring them home in their clothes, and so have developed an unusual form of acne, he said. And far more serious, it has been shown that peo ple whose homes were in the vicinity of a Pennsylva nia beryllium plant shared with the factory workers a definite risk of developing berylliosis, a serious and progressively dangerous lung disease. Other reported examples linked to occupational exposures which resulted in family or community health risks included the follow ing: V A high rate of cancer among women doctors and nurses in operating rooms and a high rate of birth de fects among their children. According to data present ed by Dr. Thomas H. Cor bett at the University of Michigan Medical Center, experiments on pregnant mice exposed to one type of anesthetic produced can cers in the animals and their offspring while preg nant mice exposed only to room air remained tumor- free, as did their offspring. Corbett suggested that similar experiments should be conducted to test other types of anesthetics for their potentially harmful effects. A suspiciously high rate of lung cancer among women in Anaconda, Mon tana where there is a cop per smelter employing only men. Thought to be respon sible is the arsenic which is a byproduct of the smelting process and a sizable component of the local air pollution. Polyvinyl chloride, the plastic whose production is linked to a rare form of cancer may also be associ ated with birth defects. There is as yet no clear-cut proof. Dr. Peter Infante, of the Ohio Department of Health reported. But women in the three towns in Ohio where there are PVC plants gave birth to more cliildren with malforma tions than would have been expected based on the birth defects rate of the rest of the state of the years 19701973. ASI 0002271 w. 5 / Z(i / 75^ Cancer Chemical Curbs Backed By Judith Randal sumers. While the prices of Wtjhlnjton Star Staff Writer some products might rise, NEW YORK--An official of the National Institutes of Health denies that enforce ment of measures requiring industry to protect em ployes from cancer-causing chemicals would have a seriously adverse effect on the economy. "We hear increasing criticism that regulatory efforts are severly infla tionary," Dr. David P. Rail yesterday told the first major conference ever held on .occupational cancer. "These criticisms are based on a poor under standing of that segment of the regulatory apparatus ..concerned with substances that are potentially hazardous to the public's health." Rail, director of NIH's National Institute of Envi ronmental Health Sciences, said that his and other agencies have been told by the Ford administration to file statements on the infla tionary impact of any regu latory programs they pro he said, this does not take into account the conse quences of the unregulated use of toxic substances. "When regulatory deci sions result in the consum ers of the product paying the true and total cost -- in cluding safety testing and occupational environmental control costs -- it is difficult for me to see how this can be considered inflation ary," he said. Rail's point of view strongly resembles that of Dr. Charles C. Edwards, who recently resigned as assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health, Education and Wel fare. Before leaving, Ed wards had prepared a re port criticizing the government for not putting more emphasis on disease prevention and saying that the failure was a major reason for the nation's medical bills now totaling $100 billion a year and con tinuing to rise. UNLESS PREVENTION pose and that President is recognized as being as Ford's Council of Economic important as treatment, Advisers has made it clear Edwards said, there will that it takes a dim view of soon be an additional annu programs that would be al cost of $100 billion to the costly io industry. economy traceable to the "THE THRUST of this fact that people who be criticism is oriented totally come seriously ill unneces to short-term costs and sarily are not able work. benefits and ignores long Another government offi term problems," Rail cial at yesterday's meeting argued, adding that sav -- Dr. Edward Fairchild of ings made now would be the National Institute for outweighed by the future Occupational Safety and expense of caring for peo Health -- reported that the ple whose cancers were due rate of occupationally to the chemicals they had related cancers is rising, in encountered on their jobs in part because an average of j the 1970s. 700 new compounds a year | Rail called "total non- enter the marketplace I sense" the idea that worker without first being tested in 1 protection would impose animals for their tumor- ] unbearable costs on con causing potential. AS I 0002271 UJfiSH!N<3T0hi STAH 3)2.1 hs Unions Seek Help Cancer Hazards on Job ' By Judith Randal Whington Slur Staff Writer NEW YORIJ--Mingling with the hundreds of scientists here at a meeting on occupationally related cancer is Larry P. Williams, a 31year-old maintenance man who works at the Gadsden, Ala., tire plant of the Goodyear Rubber Co. Until recently, neither Williams nor his fellow workers thought much about health in connection with their jobs. But like more than a dozen other unions representing millions of workers and the AFL-CIO itself, the United Rubber Workers has recently become sensitive to the potential haz ards of the workplace. So Williams, who serves on the local union's safety and health committee, is here to keep abreast of developments. Dr. Irving J. Sellikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine -- an expert on asbestos-related cancer and one of the leading figures in 1973 revela tions linking worker exposure to interest in such-problems "a revolu tion." IN JUST the last five years, he told reporters at the conference yester day, "an extraordinary group of young labor leaders" have turned to the scientific community to help them identify industrial hazards and find ways to protect worker health. "Why, when the first findings about vinvl chloride were announced, seven unions were in our office with in a week asking what they could do to further our research," he says. "This is something that never could have happened before." One of the advantages of working with unions, experts like Sellikoff say, is that those which are organized along craft lines like the typogra phers, paper makers, roofers and painters were often organized as burial societies in the 19th century and therefore have death certificates and other medically valuable records that go back almost 100 years. The experts are also pleased about gaining access to an entire union with membership that is dispersed in a number of plants and localities be cause it gives them an opportunity to detect health patterns they otherwise mi*ht mlS!' See UNIONS, A-7 AS I 00022712 UNIONS Continued From A-3 "NO SINGLE company," says Dr. E. Cuyler Ham mond of the American Can cer Society, "can provide the scientific community A'ith the wealth of informaion that collaborative ex torts with unions can." And, througn contract negotiations between labor and management, industry is also part of the study team. For while some unions finance the effort entirely through member ship dues, a growing num ber are instead following the example of the rubber workers. Under their negotiated arrangement, the six major companies in the industry supply a half-cent per man hour worked which sup ports research on the union membership at the Harvard and University of North Carolina Schools of Public Health. Part of- the fiveyear agreement, which is renewable, is that institu tions selected to carry out the research must be ac cepted by both labor and management. The focus at the meeting has understandably been on cancer. But the scientistunion collaboration covers the whole gamut of occupa tional health and involves the teamwork of many kinds of specialists ranging from statisticians to sociologists. ported so far have concern becoming sophisticated ! ed only men. However, as about the dangers they may j more women enter the face in their work. Wil- ] labor force increasing Hams, for example, talks as j attention is being paid to easily as any scientist about ! them. Many blue collar cancer-causing substances j women, for example, work as "carcinogens," and will j during the first three go home to report to fellow j months of pregnancy, the union members that a new : period in the development test promises to identify of the fetus when it is most such agents in only <18 , likely to develop birth de hours. | fects. "As a result of the i Meanwhile, governments University of North Caroli- I have also become interest na studies," he says, "we 1 ed in these problems. In the think we have reason to> United States, agencies like suspect we've got a high the Labor Department's incidence of some forms of ] Occupational Safety and cancer. The plant changes j Health Administration and compounds often. With the the Health, Education and traditional animal tests it! Welfare Department's Na takes two years to find out tional Institute for Occupa whether these new formu tional Safety and Health las are potentially danger work with both unions and ous. That's too long to industry. And in Sweden, wait." one-half of 1 percent of that nation's total wages -- about $20 million a year -- The meeting on occupa tionally related cancer is j sponsored by the New York j is now earmarked for occu Academy of Sciences. The j pational health research. Department of Health, j Education and Welfare and j BUT PERHAPS the big two private organizations | gest change is that many have supplied the financial rank-and-file workers are support. EVEN IF THEY never develop mesothelioma, an asbestos-related lung can cer, for instance, workers in this industry have long had an unusually high rate of suicide because of the respiratory difficulties they typically face after long exposure to the mineral. And workers in the syn thetic textile industry who are exposed to a compound called carbon disulfide fre quently become impotent as a result. All this and more is grist for the research mill. In deed, trends that develop in industry can, say many scientists, serve as a fore warning for the public at large. ! MOST of the findings re AS I 00022713