Document O1KwobEb2ZdLrwB8aJjprpYnp

RUBBER & PLASTICS *N. EWS ' . The Rubber Industry's Fortnightly Newspaper shed by Hnr Prtlishing Corporation Maher 21,1974 1100 First National Tawtr, Akrai, Obit 44300 ! Vinyl Chloride | Final Standard Stirs Protests PVC Industry Fears Tough OSHA Stand Spells Doom y VM WufchiftM Mm amta WASHINGTON--The U.S. Occupation al Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued its anxiously awaited final standard for worker exposure to vinyl chloride on Oct. 4, and while the result wasn't the "no detectable" limit originally proposed by the agency, it was tough enough to raise a storm of industry protest--and at best faint praise from labor. Within a few minutes of the standards' announcement, the Society of the Plastics Industry filed a petition for review of the standards in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Additional lawsuits followed in rapid succession. Hooker and Union Carbide filed similar suits in the New York Court, while Tenneco and Air Products filed in the Third Circuit Court and Firestone in the Sixth. B.F.Goodrich is expected to follow suit. THE TOUGH new standard that has stirred such vehement opposition will require industry to reduce vinyl chloride concentration in air to no more than one part per million parts of air (ppm) over any eight-hour period and no more than five ppm over any period no longer than 15 minutes. OSHA has established a three-phase schedule for plants and factories to meet the standards. Perhaps the most vehement rejection of the standard came from Todd C. Walker, president of the Firestone Plas tics Co. Walker charged that the new standard "puts the vinyl plastics industry on a collision course with economic disaster." Walker cited an economic impact study made earlier this year by the Arthur D. Little Co., based on an initial proposed standard similar to the final permanent standard issued October 4. According to the Little study. Walker said, a standard as tough as the one now going into effect would cause the loss of some 2 million industry jobs. "This [Little] study and other medical, scientific and engineering data submitted by the industry and by individual com panies in response to OSHA's request," Walker said," appear to have been completely ignored in establishing the standard." THE RESULT, said Walker, is a standard that is "economically unrealis tic. technically unfeasible, politically motivated and medically ridiculous." It is comparable, he said, "to a law aimed at stopping automobile deaths by lower ing the speed limit to one mile per hour." Firestone, Walker said, would initiate "necessary legal steps" to challenge the new standard._________ - Spokesmen for Goodyear, meanwhile, declined to comment on the substance of the standard, indicating only that the company would take the necessary steps to try to comply. And, at least one firm, I Robintech Inc., indicated that only minor alterations would be required to comply with the standard. In posting the permanent standard, OSHA officials acknowledged the diffi culty some segments of the industry, would have in achieving compliance. "There is little dispute that VC [vinyl chloride] is carcinogenic [cancer-causing] to man and we so conclude," said OSHA Chief John H. Stender. "However," Stender added, -"the pre cise level of exposure which poses a hazard and the question of whether a `safe' exposure level exists cannot be definitively answered on the record. Nor is it clear to what extent exposures can be feasibly reduced." But, Stender emphasized, OSHA "can not wait until undisputable answers to these questions are available... lives of employees are at stake." . r- 0> CO On ouPQ Continued 24092001 RUBBER & PLASTICS NEWS - October 21, 1974 VINYL CHLORIDE FINAL STANDARD STIRS PROTESTS -2- ACCORDINGLY, he said, "on the basis of the best available evidence," OSHA has judged that the exposure limit must be reduced to 1 ppm on a "timer weighted average [TWA]" to protect woricers. "We also believe," Stender concluded, "that PVC [polyvinyl chloride] and VC -establishments will, in time, be able to attain that level through engineering con trols, and that fabricators can do so in the immediate future." Noting that the standard will apply to the entire VC industry, including manu, facturers of vinyl chloride monomer (normally a gas) and polyvinyl chloride polymer (normally a resin compound used in a number of plastic materials) and fabricators of plastics products using j VC and PVC (employers who use or i handle finished fabricated products are exempt). OSHA officials summarized key provisions of the standard as follows: Employers must set up "regulated areas" where concentrations of VCM (vinyl chloride monomer) exceed the "one and five ppm" limits, with access limited to "authorized" workers. Plans for reducing exposure to the permissible "one and five ppm" levels must be available on request of OSHA. Direct contact by employees with liquid VCM is prohibited. Monitoring and measuring programs j must be initiated to learn whether ex- i posure levels exceed 0.5 ppm. Depending i on levels found, repeat measurements are required at least monthly or quarterly. , They may be discontinued only when i two consecutive measurements, no fewer i than five working days apart, show indi- j dividual employee exposures to be less than 0.5 ppm. Monitoring and measuring methods i ' must meet accuracy requirements ranging i from not less than 50% in concentra- | | tions from 0.25 through 0.5 ppm, to 25% for levels greater than one ppm. Where the regular monitoring pro gram shows excursion levels may exceed i 25 ppm, a continuous monitoring and ! alarm system must be used to alert em ployees to potential danger if they are using air filtering respirators (gas masks). At that level they must switch to respira tors with a clean air supply. Protective garments as well as res piratory protection must be provided for employees in hazardous situations, such as cleaning operations in PVC vessels. Medical programs must include complete initial examinations. Subse quent ones will be required every six months for employees who have worked in VCM or PVC operations for 10 or more years, and annually for ail other exposed woricers. Alternative medical examinations will be acceptable if the examining physician states his procedures | and reasons for substitution. All medical checks are at no cost to employees. Specified signs or labels are required , at entrances to "regulated areas," in hazardous operations or emergency areas, on containers of PVC resin waste, PVC containers and VCM containers. Records of required monitoring and measuring, medical records, and rosters of "authorized" workers must be kept for varying specified times, or be sent to the Director. National Institute for Occu pational Safety and Health, if an em ployer ceases to do business before the expiration of retention periods. Reports must be made to the nearest OSHA Area Director no later than one month after establishing a "regulated area," and within 24 hours of any "emer gency" exposure. Also, reports to affected employees must be made within 10 days after monitoring and measuring shows exposure in excess of the "one and five ppm" limits, including the results of the measurements and steps being taken to reduce exposure to permissible levels. BFG29368 24092002 B FG 29369 I BARRON'S Explosive Controversy Pago 3 '/ 1 The Dispute Over PVC Sends Shock Waves Throughout Industry | By Dana L. Thomas sure, claims that even this huge in DISCLOSURE last January of the vestment will not enable it to meet death from angiosarcoma, a OSHA's stringent requirements with rare cancer of the liver, of thoreuet resorting to respiratory equip workers at B. F. Goodrich's poly- ment. The latter, it points out, not 1 vinyl chloride resin plant in Louis only could reduce worker pro ville prompted the U.S. Occupntion- ductivity, but even more important, * al Safety & Health Administration also pose a health hazard. . : (OSHA) to take stiff measures to ret dues the health hazard. Aftc\* impos ing temporary lower exposure levels i for tho chemical, OSTIA ruled in Oc* ! tober that, beginning next January 1, producers and fabricators must equip their plants to cut the level to ; near-zero -- one-part per million -- compared with the 50 parts per mil lion previously in effect. Arguing that it is technologically and eco nomically unfeasible to meet such . a rigid standard, representatives of ; the industry have filed n suit scek ing modification of the OSHA ruling; . oral hearings will be held by the U.S. Court of Appeals this Friday, Severe Resin Shortages Industry observers warn that if OSHA persists in its ruling, many more firms will be forced to shut down wholly or partially, creating a severe shortage of the resin and sky rocketing prices. On tho other hand, government agencies, labor unions and lobbyists for industrial health controls argue that corporations must bo held socially accountable and forced to put considerations of human life and safety above profits --whatever the cost. So the battle has been joined; the outcome, as noted, will have far-reaching effects. Meanwhile, the Society of the Plas Vinyl chloride, the basic raw ma tics Inch 'vy has asked the court terial for polyvinyl resin production, for an e sion of its January dead is a gas at room temperature; it i line. . Needle** to say, tho polyvinyl case has sent shock waves through synthesized from chlorine and cthy leno in plants which resemble nil re fineries. It was launched commer- out the industry. PVC resin is a basic December, Di\ John Creech, a com other blow. It was disclosed- that an pany doctor, learned that. Earl Parks, who had begun working at the facility in 1013 and had been forced to retire in the late 'Sixties, owing to poor health, had died the previous August of a liver disease. Concerned about the suspiciously, high number of Goodrich workers Italian Professor of Medicine, Cesare Maltoni, had discovered--two years before the announcement of the Goodrich deaths--in laboratory ex periments that rats exposed to 250 parts per million of vinyl chloride developed angiosarcoma. The infor suffering liver diseases, Dr. Creech mation hod been transmitted to the asked to see nn autopsy on Parks. government and medical societies in When ho learned that Parks had the U.S., lmt nothing had been done died of angiosarcoma of the liver, about it. Indeed, up until the Good the doctor recalled that two years before another Goodrich worker had succumbed to the same disease. Since angiosarcoma is exceedingly rare, the incidence of two such deaths in. the plant's small work force struck Dr. Creech as-highly ominous. Ke contacted Goodrich's occupa tional health director, who hired Tabershaw-Coopcr Associates, an epidemiological research firm, to conduct an investigation of the mor tality files of Goodrich workers. This had barely begun when a third worker, who had been at the Good rich polyvinyl plant for 23 years, died of angiosarcoma. Greatly dis- rich fatalities, OSHA continued to insist that it was safe for production plants to operate at a 500-ppm ex posure level. Another disclosure was equally sobering. Even before Professor Mal- toni's discovery, Solvay & Cie, a Belgian polyvinyl maker, which be came worried over the increasing incklence of acro-osteolysis among workers at its plants, hired Dr. P. L. Viola to do medical research on the subject. Dr. Viola was unable to de velop ncro-osteloysis in Ms labora tory animals, but 1 produced something worse -- cu. .er of tho liver. Requested Socr-~v materia' 'ployed in n host of indus trial anc usehold products. Major uses Include the packaging of food, the upholstery, wiring and compo- , nent parts of autos, In building and construction, phonograph records, piping, luggage and sporting goods. While producers employ 6,000 work ers to turn out and fabricate the res in, two million jobs depend on its use. The value of products depen dent on PVC runs over $60 billion a year. In short, the OSHA ruling could have an adverse impact on a big slice of the U.S. economy. Arguing that they are being asked to adhere to standards that are technically impossible and economically unfeasible, the PVC producers are taking their case to court. . dally in the 'Thirties and, thanks to Its fire resistance and ability to be molded into a wide range of forms, was dubbed a "wonder plastic," turbed, Goodrich management re ported the deaths to officials of the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH). After in Tho results were orted In Tokyo In 19G9j and in 1970, to the Tenth International Cancer Con gress, meeting in Houston. To check out Dr. Viola's studies, four Euro pean chemi;al companies hired Professor Maltoni to conduct the aforementioned experiments. As noted, in 1972 he produced malig nancies in animals which were ex*, posed to 250 ppm of vinyl chloride. In January 1973, this information was passed on to the Manufacturing Chemists Association in the U.S., with the request it be kept confiden "Blew Whistle on Itself" Ironically, prior to the public an nouncement of the death of the Goodrich workers, the PVC industry `itself did nil the medical research which established the link between vinyl chloride and cancer. Ralph L. Harding Jr., president of the Society of the Plastics Industry, declares: ' "This is a unique situation. Industry ` financed the studies and blew' the whistle on itself." However, government agencies rushed in quickly thereafter, mak ing up for lost time by imposing what industry spokesmen claim are unrealistic safety standards. The . PVC issue is a test case and perhaps only the first in n long line of con troversies ahead. For OSHA is just one of several new government agencies which have been estab lished sinco 1070, ns n result of the lobbying of environmentalists, tho vise of consumerism and the grow ing crusade for industrial health re forms. The OSHA ruling on exposure lev els already has had repercussions in the PVC business--including pres sure on stock prices of major pro ducers. Goodyear has announced it is shutting down a facility at Niaga ra, slashing its output of PVC res in by 50G, or 50 million pounds, and eliminating 60 of the plant's 4-10 jobs. Goodrich, while programming a $42 ; million outlay over tho next three or which went into hundreds of indus trial and household products. Last year, nine firms produced vinyl chloride gas in 14 plants. Their out put was used by 21 companies to turn out over five billion pounds of polyvinyl resin, in 37 plants. The leading producer is B. F. Goodrich, followed by Firestone, Conoco, Union Carbide, Borden, Diamond Sham rock, Robintech, Tenncco, Air Prod ucts, Goodyear and Hooker (division of Occidental Petroleum). Vinyl chloride had not been con sidered a seriously hazardous chemical. However, in the process of conversion from gas to resin, there is substantial leakage and the chief worry has been of plant explo sions. The gas can induce narcosis (sleep). In fact, it war. once tried out ns an anesthetic but was dis carded, sinco it caused heart irrita tion. During the 'Sixties, in cleaning out the vats during the conversion process, incidences of acro-ostcolysis (bone and skin disease) cropped up among workers, and VCM proces sors introduced new techniques to reduce exposure. To further protect workers, OSHA, which was estab lished in 1070 under the industrial health safety act, set limits of 500 parts per million of the chemical, to which workers could be exposed in gas and resin plants. Matters were thought to be under control until the tragedies at the tensive consultation, the news was made public on January 22, 1974. The announcement hit the indus try like a bombshell. William Lloyd, director of health surveillance for NIOSH, declared, "This has to be one of the most startling findings ever in industrial medicine." Govern ment health officials immediately Inunchod a nationwide investigation. Staff members of NIOSH and OSHA went to polyvinyl chemical plants all over the country to study the situation. Charging that "workers are tired of being guinea pigs," offi cials of the United Rubber Workers and the Oil, Chemical & Atomic En ergy Workers, demanded that PVC producers eliminate tho exposure hazards or shut down. Health Crusader In nddition, they nsked Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, director of Mt. Sinai Hos pital's Environmental Sciences Lab oratory, to undertake medical inves tigations on their behalf. Over the years, Dr. Selikoff has built a repu tation as a crusader for improved safety conditions in 'industry. A highly articulate spokesman, and a consultant to the AFL-CIO, the doc tor is known as the Ralph Nader of the industrial health field. He pitched in vigorously. Assisted by labor personnel, lie began digging into the health records at producers' plants. tial until Professor Maltoni had the chance to further analyze and in terpret his studies. The ban was lifted in July 1973 and the report on Dr. Maltoni's experiments was transmitted by the Manufacturing Chemists Association to NIOSH and other government agencies. Inexplicably, nothing was done about Professor Maltoni's findings. The Labor Department claims, in retrospect, that it didn'tget the com plete I'eport; the MCA insists that the government did receive the data, but failed to comprehend its signif icance. In any event, Washington agencies made no effort to change the standards of exposure that OSHA had decreed for the industry in 1971 --namely, 500 parts per million par ticles--double the level at which Dr. Maltoni produced liver cancer in his test animals. Meanwhile, Great Britain and Germany had tightened up their exposure levels. In the U.S.., Dow Chemical had been raising its standards over the years, and Good rich, whose subsequent announce ment of fatalities was to touch off the storm, by the middle of 1973 had upgraded its exposure goal consid erably above that of OSHA. The disclosure . that Washington and tho MCA had known about^ the cancer-producing danger of vinyl chloride months before the Good rich deaths sparked a public furor. A Nashville newspaper ran a series four years to reduce worker expo aforementioned Goodrich plant. Last Then the Industry suffered an Continued on Page 12 rr Jfc 001 rr 0L6lOd9