Document OEj17y1pjmQkr7BjVBEoqODXe

V' BY LEE HOCHBERG SHADOW.. .. ; OVER'Jo '* >'i 7, BRAZOSPORT ?ktw0-: t .{If FAs>.r Sixty miles south ofHouston lies a bucolic coastal community with a thriving economy and the trappings ofthe good life. There'sjust oneproblem. Aft* >, A . -mmi n July 4,1976, Joe and Laura Tod of Lake Jackson went over to (he center of town to ring the Bicentennial Bel) Oas part of the holiday ceremony. Joe started ringing it. He wouldn't stop. Mrs. Tod, then in her early fifties, asked Joe to stop ringing the beD. She said it was too loud and was bothering other holiday celebrants. Joe, SB, smiled at her eerily and went on ringing. For the next two weeks, Joe Tod, who had worked for 35 yean at the Dow Chemical plant in nearby Freeport, behaved irrational ly. He ran stop signs. He drove on the wrong side of the road, veering only when oncom ing can were about to smash into him. Then Former Houstonian Let Hochbert works /or radio station KC8S in San Francisco. one day he began vomiting. He was rushed to Houston's Methodist Hospital, where doctors offered a frightening diagnosis: Tod had glioblastoma, a rare and fast-growing brain tumor that four times in five presages a quick and painful death. Four days later, brain surgeons operated on him. Curiously, Tod had familiar company in Methodist's neurosurgery ward that sum mer. Two other Dow employees were under going surgery for the same form of brain cancer, and several others from Dow had nonmalignant brain tumors. Still more resi dents of the Freeport-Lake Jackson area were being treated for other forms ofcancer. One widow of a Dow worker in Methodist with glioblastoma at the time remembers that ` the cancer seemed like it was aO around you if you lived in that area." Before developing i v. ; n>- *'.i :v>: /** &FG28850 BFG28851 _--( rent population. Today the 4.500-acre Dow Miller was so happy in his job, in fact, fas ! `Seems like every time you turn around complex includes five electrical generating plants and a 500-mile network of pipelines. Brazosport has become the fifth-largett income-producing community in Texas; 14 two or three times every week he would wort I a double shift of 16 hours in those magae- { sium cells. He did that until April 1976, *tgn he began developing what he thought vat someone you know is getting cancer/ chemical companies, led by Dow. account for half that wealth. Dow has even had its hands in the archi sinus headaches. Often the headaches war so bad that he told his wife he wasn't star he could go to work. one widow says. tecture of the area; back in 1942, Alden Dow "This was a man who losed to work. ; of the original Dow family planned the loved to make money," Robinson says at a > area's most populous town. Lake Jackson-- comfortable Texas drawl. "His idea was to I a pleasant place that looks tike Houston'! let him do everything. What he really ared i brain career, her husband. Jerry Miller, had Meyerland. plopped peacefully down on the about was bringing home money for the worked in the magnesium cells, where an Oat Gulf Coast in the shadows of Dow's family. We had the perfect family life." j electric current is used to break down magne belching smokestacks. Miller's last day of work was May I. His | sium chloride into the metal magnesium and Only 60 miles from Houston's frenzy, driving was getting erratic, he had bouu h i chlorine gas. He died later that autumn at the Brazosport is surprisingly bucolic. The eve vomiting, and he gradually began dragging ( age of 38. loe Tod died of brain cancer in ning exodus along Highway 332 from the his left leg when he walked. The Millm had j February 1977. Dow plant toward Lake Jackson is not so no family doctor--they had always been ; Last summer, the federal government re much a rush as a slow and steady spread to healthy--and the general practitioner they ported a startling discovery: at least 25 ward home. Off to the left, set far from the consulted in Angleton diagnosed only a sinus former Dow employees had died of brain highway, lies the west end of Dow's ten-mile- infection. A few days later, sitting a the cancer over the but 40 years. That is a figure long complex; to the right, chain hotels rise kitchen table, Miller asked his wife for a glass epidemiologists call statistically significant; it from open fields; dead ahead are the dying of milk. One already sat in front of him. is twice the rate among Brazoria County resi remains of a spectacular orange Texas sun slightly off to the left. Recognizing that dents not employed at Dow. set, enhanced by some airborne emission. something was wrong, the couple rushed to Above all there's a feeling of wide-open Methodist Hospital in Houston, where a i razosport, where the mouth of the space and a countrified, satisfied mood as neurologist detected the tumor. I Brazos River empties into the Gulf of the evening lights begin to sparkle within the "Later Jeny admitted to me that he had ' jMexico south of Houston, is a slick Dow plant. had no feeling in his left foot for quite > h3e name for nine interlocking communi Last May 30, a headline in the local news but had been embarrassed to complain." his J ties that serve as hometowns for sev paper, the Brazosport Facts, warned area widow confides. "And 1 remembered exsce i Bi eral thousand chemical workers in residents, "Brain Cancer Deaths Higher he had been riding a bicycle and showed up I Freeport. "It's Texas' fastest-grow Than Normal." The Occupational Safety without his left shoe--he couldn't remember j ing industrial complex." trumpets the local and Health Administration (OSHA) and iu what had happened to it. That mus have 1 chamber of commerce, and the statistics bear research arm, the National Institute for Oc happened a couple of times. He didn't un- : that out--the area's population has doubled cupational Safety and Healih (NIOSH). had dersiand what was happening." j I! since I960, to over 61,000. and is concen been conducting an investigation that would Doctors tried brain surgery and radiation , 4 trated in neighboring Lake Jackson. Free eventually turn up 18 brain cancer cases at treatments during the summer of 1976. By | port, and Oute. The population is expected the Union Carbide plant in Texas City, five at to double again by the year 2000. Monsanto in Texas City, and several more The hub of the area is Dow Chemical. among workers at Texaco, Gulf, and Mobil 4* Known best as the maker of Saran Wrap, plants in Beaumont and Port Arthur. The i: Handi-Wrap, Ziploc food storage bags, and agencies were curious about Brazoria Coun Styrofoam, the company actually earned ty records indicating that several Dow em most of its 59.2 billion in 1979 by selling ployees had died of brain cancer, and both chemicals to other industrial companies. the agencies and Dow had set out to examine Most of those chemicals are produced at the problem. Dow's report conceded that, Dow's largest facility, the Texas Division indeed, at.least IJ of its workers had died of plant in Brazosport. One of the toughest, brain cancer since 1961. best-managed, and fastest-growing compa Although Dow assured its employees that nies in one of the world's most competitive "there is little evidence to suggest a relation industries, Dow ranks 21st in the Forbes 500. ship exists between occupational exposure to It is not enough to say that Dow is die chemical agents and an increased risk of dominant economic force in Brazosport. In brain cancer," the company made a curious fact, Brazosport was essentially created by ly contradictory acknowledgment: that work Dow. In the I9JOi, the company recognized ers faced an increased risk of contracting gli that the adjoining 15-mile stretch of coajt oblastoma, a highly malignant and fatal was the only piece of frontal mainland in form of brain cancer, if they were exposed to Texas--the only piece of shoreline without chlorine, hydrogen chloride, magnesium, or an estuarine system, without salt marshes, magnesium oxide. without barrier islands to restrict the flow of seawater, which is used for cooling and as a immie Robinson's first husband, Jer source of magnesium and chlorine. Dow ry Millet, worked eight years in Dow's I pounced on this geographical peculiarity, magnesium cells before dying that au I JI completing its huge Texas Division plant in tumn of 1976 at age 38. "He thought Freeport by 1940 and importing workers by Dow was the most fantastic place in Texas Division PR manager Am Hansen the thousands. Other chemical companies the world," his widow recalls. "He says Dow employees 'don 'i have a high followed, as did 90 percent of the area's cur was happy in his job." levei oj concern about brain cancer. ' I NATAHIMI 23960 BFG28852 I ih-,'i/o.v a/ Dow's Texas Division hrodguorttrs in Brazosport.__________________________ juitiinfi itw as clear that Miller wouldn't sur- 'i'( ` Probably the most painful thins for ! U'." Mrs. Robinson says, "was watching thi* Mrong and proud man who had worked so turd for his family--and his company-- ro . n to being like a little child. It was such a P"i'ul sight." Miller lapsed into a coma and dicJ early in November. Miller's widow remarried two years later. Her urtond husband, who w-orks in Dow's pain: department, used to work in the very same magnesium cells Jerry Miller had ' worked in. 'seems like every lime you rum around, someone you know is getting some sort of ; earner around here," Mrs. Robinson says, sett ling onto t he sofa in the den of her Angle. ton home. "You rack your brain looking for an answer. Maybe they spray the rice fields around here with something, or maybe it's i 'he kind of foods we eat in this area. But l j don't think Jerry or I ever connected his JI problem with Dow-." Their two daughters, I J-year-old MicheOe and nine-year-old Vicki, have come away i frf,ni their father's death with an awareness of health their parents perhaps didn't have. kki went into hysterics recently when her stiTfather pricked himself with a catfish fin." Mrs. Robinson says. "She really thought he was going to die. And she's always asking whether things are poison." Mrs. Robinson herself isn't asking that question. "You can always smell the chemi- cals in the air here." she says. "I'd never had sinus headaches before I moved here in 1971, but I've had them ever since." Then a pause, and an innocent smile. "If I take enough Sine-Aid, I can usually get rid of them." Jimmie Robinson says she is very happy where she it. obody is really sure what that smeD in the air over Brazoria County is. Most Houstonians who drive the area or ;he marshy, barren stretch of the Gulf Freeway alongside the work horse; refineries of Texas City are familiar with the odor--an acrid, pungent, almost sweet smell that suggests the making of plastics. For a brief moment just before dark the air assumes an ob-so-subtlc green hue, and on those cold, misty, miser able nights that are the mark of a Gulf Coast winter, unmistakable traces of chlorine waft inland on the chilling air. "In the pass H has been suggested that a number of plants in this area clear their stacks at night, when people are less likely to complain," notes Pat Buffler, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health. Emissions from these stacks, Buffler says, may contain known or suspected car cinogen) such as vinyl chloride, trichloroeth ylene, and perchlorethylene (Brazoria Coun ty is a national leader in production of cer tain carcinogenic chlorinated hydrocarbons). In concert with the county's high concentra tion of solvents, the chemicals make Brazosport's "pollutant mix" unique even to petro chemical-producing reports. Not until last April did OSHA/NIOSH investigators examining the Texas City brain cancer problem stumble onto Brazoria County and Dow's seemingly high rate of brain cancer. The NIOSH study found the risk of a Dow employee's developing the cancer twice that of other Brazoria County residents, the same twofold risk detected among petrochemical employees in Texas Gty and Beaumont/Port Arthur. Just what that finding means, however, is a hot epidemiological question. "Are the chemicals in the Dow workplace causing cancer?" Buflier asks. "Or could Dow's health-insured population be receiving better medical care, more accurate diagnoses of the tumors, and, in turn, a more accurate tabb ing of cause of death on their death certifi cates than the public at large? "The mark of good epidemiology is the teasing away of all these other factors in order to arrive at some definitive statement about causality," Buffler explains. "It would be irresponsible to put too much fear into the employees right now--just as it would be irresponsible to minimize the statis tic. Some serious epidemiology still needs to be done." Such epidemiology began with the NIOSH study and continued with Dow's acknowledgment in May that an unusual?) -C'Ocauu) y Mats tatOtrOt i^USCl HOUSTON ClTV IMOZWC 23960(104 BFG28853 Rocky Holden hod ihe first of two malignant brain tumors in 1970. He takes It pdfs a day to control the cancer. high number (13) of its employees had died ally no greater than could be expected in a population of that size." of brain cancer since 1961--but then some working population the size of Dow's. Buffler responds, "If I were an inteSgeni how dcioured into a textbook case of a gov "That's not true," retons Buffler, nor widow, | would have been troubled by that ernmem-versus-industry occupational safety mally a moderate scientist and not one to go statement.'' In fact, whether the company squabble. At a May meeting in Freeport, the on the attack. "There is a conelation [be had planned it that way or not, what had be OSHA/NIOSH team requested broad access tween brain cancer and chemical exposure!, gun as an exercise in epidemiology seemed to to Dow's personnel records, hoping to relate but we don't know what it means. We don't be fast becoming a well-orchestrated pro- ! a specific job assignment to the cancer; Dow know that it's causal. gram in public relations. Hatty refused, demanding (according to a "You go after the truth in a matter like company newsletter) that the investigators this, not whitewash it." Buffler says. "You ow public relations managa Jim follow "a strict protocol which would pro don't put your head in the sand." Hansen wearily escorts me to a plush tect any Dow trade secret information . Meanwhile, a five-part television series on office in the Dow complex. It is a ii and insure Dow employees their privacy Ted Turner's Cable News Network examined cold, dark, and windy Friday night. and protection of their individual rights." what seyera) area doctors were beginning to Hansen has been in Austin al day. ii NIOSH investigators were incensed with call a "brain cancer epidemic" along the The meeting begins in the fluores Dow; officials at Union Carbide in Texas Texas coast. Then-congressman Bob Eck- cent fighting and stony silence of an DCity had fully cooperated. The government hardt took up the cause and accused Dow of empty building. didn't hide its annoyance, lamenting in an ficials of blocking a complete investigation "We've had: ome real problems wih press official press statement that "NIOSH/ by NIOSH. He ordered his House commerce coverage of this brain cancer thing," Hansen OSHA plans... to determine which jobs or subcommittee on oversight and investiga begins, running a hand over his graying, chemical exposures can be associated with tions to begin a major investigation of Dow slicked-back hair. "It hasn't been as) keep the disease axe stymied by Dow's non-coop and the area's "epidemic levels" of brain ing this panic from our employees." eration." cancer. Hansen is a big, solid man, but as he lilts Tensions mounted throughout the sum Faced with such negative news, Dow back his thronelike rocking chair, iu thick mer. as further government studies increased shifted gear in laic July. Foe the first time it cushions seem to envelop him. IGciing his the Dow brain cancer death count to 25 since went public with Hs own epidemiologica) feet onto his desk, he looks around at the the plant's opening in 1941 and noted that results. Only two months earlier the com richly furnished office and sighs. His yellow "it is very likely that a large proportion of pany had acknowledged that the brain can Lacoste sweater hangs open to expose a red Dow's former employees have left the area cer death rate was higher than expected, but Lacotte shirt that covers a healthy belly. and a number of them have since died of a on July 2t a memo informed all 7,000 Texas "I think our employees have a prmy high brain tumor." Dow- epidemiologists private Division employees and the press that "there level of awareness about what the media are ly embarked on their own case-control study, is nothing .. . indicating that the number of trying to do. how they're trying to sensation which, in their interpretation, indicated that deaths due to brain cancer in the total work alize this brain cancer story," Hansen say^Jv the number of brain tumor deaths was actu population is above the expected dorm for a "Oow employees know that, so they J--*- <o juwh. mi jB iB ttn ia m BFG28854 ) II V 11 h .1 I. v. x- f- I' ll* ' a Hi' c\l iph are in i''. ; n'l | hjic a high level of concern about brain can The word on brain cancer coming out of cer. I hope some of the material we've re- Dow has been by no means haphazard. Since Cancer is nature's wayle.i'cd from this office has helped keep that the onslaught of media attention brought on concern low." by the Cable News report in July, every pub ofeliminating sexually lic statement from Dow personnel concern ing the cancer has been rigorously tunneled effete individuals, a through the public relations office. When I called Dow's safety director, for instance, he said he was unable to talk and suggested that I call either the industrial medicine director or public relations director; in the time k Dow ally testifiedatan OSHA hearing. took me to hang up the phone and redial those two sources, both had been advised to Burner. "They made all the conservative expect a call. It was as though an alarm had assumptions and came out with an unreafe- sounded. And within ten minutes Hansen tically high expected incidence of tumors. had been contacted in Austin by the home You can monkey around with figures and get office in Freeport and had called me back. them to say what you want.")The films *oe "There's been so much utter garbage repeated at 30-minute intervals on given toys printed about this cancer that we make sure throughout the month, reaching, by Han everyone goes through us before talking to sen's estimate, about one-third of Dow's the press." Hansen explains. "It's not a 7,000 Texas Division employees. medical epidemic, it's a media epidemic." A third film, shown 25 times during the Dow has issued memos to Us employees week of December g-12. achieved even great and has installed television screens through er saturation--as much as 70 percent of the out the plant to broadcast closed-circuit films Dow staff, according to Hansen. Titled Re on cancer. Two films shown throughout July port on Cancer--Con He Reduce the Rdc ' emphatically presented Dow's new nance on it was produced by the American Industrial the brain tumor question: Dow's brain can Health Council (AIHO. a trade assoctobon cer total is not above the expected norm tor a of 110 American companies chaired urri re work population of its size. In fact, the sec cently by Paul Oreffice. the president of ond film suggests that the 25 deaths may ac Dow Chemical. The council was crated in W. '/den thinks he't beaten the cancerfor tually befewer than expected in a population the late 1970k specifically to represea in f/'e second lime, and has only suspicions of that size. ("But this was based on some irre dustry in ongoing OSHA attempts to regu ns cause. sponsible statistical manipulations," asserts late carcinogens in the workplace. Starting- HOUSTON orr SUONX < BFG28855 2396000ft "Dow has always been open with its em he is aching to get onto a basketball coun Dow spublic relations ployees," PR chief Hansen says, "so they and out of school for Christmas break. trust us. We've had some alarm in our newer One subject that does not make its a> to chiefopines, 'It will be employees about this brain cancer, and tome the dinner table is that a beam tumor ka o>. of the wives of the new employees have side Rocky Holden's head. pretty hardfor us to take any ofthe blame for this.* called in; I guess lots of our guys go home and don't tell their wives what we've told them at the plant. I'm sure, though, that on the whole there's t tow level of concern." A steady banage of internal news releases Holden is in his late thinies, tall and trim, perhaps skinny. The dark hair on his head is barely growing back after last summer's radiation therapy. He has an astrocytoma, a slow -growing, malignant brain tumor thatts continues. One, headlined "Dow Sets Rec not as deadly as the glioblastomas that killed ord Straight on Brain Cancer Allegations." other Dow employees. That is why Holden is ly, an AIHC representative in 19^9 (mined quotes Dow's vice-presi.eni for health and here to talk. before OSHA that cancer it of positive environmental sciences: "Earlier reports of a The kids dear out after dinner and he be benefit lo the human species. "Cancer." Dr. possibly higher than normal brain cancer gins his story on his favorite comer of his Francis J. C. Roe suggested, "is probably rate among Dow's Texas Division employees favorite sofa, ever so slowly, sometimes los one of nature's ways of eliminatint sexually distorted the data available and jumped to a ing his train of thought or struggling for the i effete individuals who would otherwise, in conclusion not substantiated by the facts." word he thinks used to come easier to him. nature's view, compete for available food re The statement seems to ignore Dow's own "1 wish this wouldn't happen," he says as his sources without advantage to the species as a earlier acknowledgment that its brain cancer mind goes blank. Remarkably, (hough, he 4 whole." rate was higher than expected. And in De shows few other signs of frustration. K< ex The AIHC film shown to Dow employees cember the Dow Texan, a magazine sent to plains it this way. in December was not quite so laudatory almost 9,000 current and retired Dow "My son dropped and broke one of my 1 about cancer's role in toughening up the employees, told of "gross distortion and glasses before dinner," he says. "I guess I species. Still, it emphatically insisted that misrepresentation of (he data" by the Cable could have yelled at him or gotten mad. But chemicals--and the chemical industry--are News Network, described as a new network what's done is done. So instead 1 said. `Jerry, not responsible for the nation's soaring can "just launching its programming" that had guess you better pick up the pieces.'" cer rale. An authoritative-looking man be- chosen "to dramatize the brain cancer sub Holden first went to work in Dow's labor girft the narration, musing, ``Sometimes it ject." The Ttxan again insisted, "There is no pool in 1967, a role (hat took him to aO sec seems everything we eat, everything we increased risk of brain cancer among em tions of the plant. "If you ask me what I've drink. even the air w e breathe has been called ployees at the Texas Division.'* been exposed to, I can't answer," ht says a carcinogen. The fear worries us at home, k I ask Hansen whether he, as a company quietly, shrugging. But he remembers his worries us on the job. But what causes can spokesman, feels any concern or responsibil first three months in the pool working with cer? Today you will hear from three authori ity for cancer victims, their families, or any soda ash, a very rough caustic that hnays ties--you'll find they have pretty much the as yet undiscovered victims who might have had him sneezing constantly. "The little same thing to say." The three cancer re moved away from Brazoria County before masks they gave us weren't nearly good searchers, repeatedly referred to as "ex dying of brain cancer. Rather than respond enough," he says, "and it was like having a perts" and "recognized authorities" in the to the question, Hansen notes a striking epi terrible cold." 20-minuie film, drive home three points: demiological finding: 61 percent of the Why did he tolerate these conditions? "The causes of cancer are quite sim known brain cancer victims were employed "I was a brand-new employee," he re- ple"--excess smoking, drinking, eating, and at Dow between 1942 and 1944, and 36 per exposure to sunlight: cent were at Dow from 1947 to 1952. Less than 5 percent of U.S. cancer cases "Even if we find that the cause was some are related to occupational exposure, and chemical process in the plant," he says, those are due entirely to exposures 20 to 30 "chances are if you go to that spot in the years ago (this ignores the obvious question: plant, the proctss will have changed since what will happen 20 to 30 years from now as 1942. . . . There just isn't a hell of a lot you a result of current exposures?): and can do about it anymore." Hansen pauses a "All unnecessary risks in the workplace moment, glances around the warm, wood- have already been eliminated." Any addi paneled office, takes his feet down from the tional occupational health controls would desk, and begins buttoning up his sweater. mean "plant shutdowns and loss of jobs." "It's not something you can suddenly reach Throughout the film, the narrator asserts back and beat your breast over and say how that "Americans are confused about the terrible we were," he says. Finally, Hansen causes of cancer," that they are "convinced flashes a disarming smile. He opines, "It will that cancer is reaching epidemic proportions, be pretty hard for us to take any of the blame despite what the `experts' say." For this state for this." I leave Hansen with a handshake of affairs he blames "constant media atten and walk out the stone-silent halls. tion" and the "so-called consumer advocate groups attached in some way to Ralph p Highway 36 about 15 miles in West Nader." And at one point, as the narrator Columbia, I meet Dow employee frets that "many people are convinced that Rocky Holden, his wife. Kathy, and Uvirtually EVERTHTHING causes cancer .. . his two children, 14-year-old Jerry despite what we have heard from these and 10-year-old Deanna. We cluster I recognized authorities," the camera zooms around the dinner table for a plateful in on three women doing their weekly shop of Rocky's homemade bunkos. The ping in a grocery (tore. The third, a middle- family talk is easy and unforced. Deann'Taheexjr 're a cold-blooded bunch ofpeople.' aged woman, is curiously eyeing a display of citedly reports that she has gotten herHfi.ftFh.-Miller says of the company's medical feminine napkins and tampons. grade pictures today; Jerry, meanwhilem, asanyastees. <1 INI (6 O "I BFG28856 plies. '*1 didn't think to complain." of a tumor in Rocky Holden's brain. admiringly at the man they know is the house I rom there it was three months in the jHolden later went back to work, passed "pro," but both they and their father are m.tcncsium plant, working around a suIfur his pipefitter test in 197), and worked at his surprised when I run the table. As the eight compound that Holden says "took the oxy craft throughout the decade. In 1979, how ball drops into the-iide pocket. Rocky's face gen out or you. It took 20 minutes to get over ever, he began suffering seizures on the job suddenly means business, and he steps mena I * He moved on to the hazardous ethylene and was forced to move to the less dangerous cingly toward me. Tension fills the room. di.imine area of the plant, where he saw "one valve shop. In 1980 he began taking radia "One thing about this brain tumor," Rocky gu> who lost lots of weight working with the tion therapy for a newly active brain tumor. growls, "is that it makes my temper act real 1 stuff." Holden wanted to hold on to what His doctors gave him a 50-50 chance for funny." He takes one more step toward me. weight he had, so he began pursuing a craft, survival. Then both he and his children break into B> 1969 he had earned an apprenticeship as a Today, 18 pills each day help keep Holden mile-wide grins. Rocky Holden has not lost pipefitter. alive, employed, and apparently feeling well, his sense of humor. t I had a chance to see how the workers if sluggish arid slow to react. He thinks he has felt about chemicals," he says matter-of- beaten the cancer for a second time and has f there is any crack in the wall of accep ' fxtly. Once his apprenticeship brought him only suspicions about its cause. tance that is Bratosport, the best place to to an area of the plant where vats of glycerin 1 were handy. Glycerin, a sweet liquid ob tained from fats and oils, is used as a solvent, antifreeze fluid, plasticizer, and sweetener, : and in the manufacture of dynamite, cost meties, liquid soaps, inks, and lubricants. "The guys used to heat up the stuff, drop "Dow might be aware of something caus find it is at the local union halls. Union Iing all this," he says easily, "and sure. I'd j like to know more about what is realty going | on. But I'm just a pipefitter. It's not as though I'm Mr. Super Safety. I'm not in a position to know, or do anything about it.'* boss O. D. Kenemore say* he is not alarmed by the discovery of brain turnon at Dow, but only because he worked there 23 yean--and saw a lot worse. "The standing rule at the plant,'* says Holden remembers once going to a Lake Kenemore, president of two local labor ; rings of it into the vats, and make glycerin | Jackson doctor for treatment of an arm rash councils and business manager of the . 'doughnuts.' " he remembers. "Then they'd and asking the doctor what might have Plumber* and Pipe raters Local No. 390 in ! eat them for breakfast or lunch." caused it. " `Dow didn't do it!' the doctor Freeport, "is to never get enough of any Late in 1969 Holden began acting strange started telling me," Holden recalls. " 'Dow fumes to make you fall down. Otherwise, ly. He had laughing spells for no apparent reason, and tears flowed from his eyes. His friends told him to see a psychiatrist Car pooling to work one morning, he toId a didn't do it! Dow's my bread and butter!* I hadn't even asked him if it was work-related. "But that's the way it is," Holden say*. "1 trust Dow to a point. Beyond that, it's out of any exposure is okay." Kenemore came to Dow in 1951 and spent six weeks in a labor pool before advancing to his permanent job as a pipefitter. His first as uory, broke into unchecked laughter, passed out, and woke up in the Dow Industrial Medicine Facility. By early 1970 doctors had removed what they thought was the entirety my power." Deanna and Jerry Holden come out to ihe den and shoot a few games of pool with the guest. Then it's Rocky's turn. The kids gaze signment was in Plant A, where vinyl chloride is made. He retired in 1973 to become a full-time labor representative. (conlinued on page 9}f -costow cut suovzwr BFG28857 J tjja s il * D* After the 1919 reason, when McMuDen de cided to go a/ter free 4011 Nolan Ryan. Smith thought (he price too high and feared j for the salary structure, hut McMuDen. with ! fanfare, signed Ryan anyway; Smith was ' displeased. Smith initially frowned upon J McMullen's query regarding drafting free I agent Joe Morgan, hut later, as McMuDen , saw it, hashed in the media's approving spot* : light when Morgan was signed; McMuDen ! was miffed. The new ownership of the New York Mets asked McMuDen's permission to j talk to Smith about a job, but McMullen I flatly refused; Smith was miffed. And so it j went. 1 These were not the private boardroom skirmishes of the business world, quietly (continual on peft 124) 4 BRA20SP0RT (continued from pat* 43) Unlike Rocky Holden, Kenemore seems almost ashamed of the tales he tells. "AD those years working with vinyl chloride," he says, shaking his head, "and nobody ever told me it was dangerous." Kenemore remembers back in 1953, when he would wake up at night in panic, unable to breathe. Sometimes during the day he and other employees would have difficulty exhal ing. He says he went to the company doctor, who told him not to worry about exhaling, that inhaRnt was the important thing. "And he told me," Kenemore recalls, "that even if I passed out, I could be dragged out of the plant and regain consciousness before long. "Nothing was barred in those days," Kenemore says with a grimace. "Workers had their bare hands in the chemicals, and nobody thought anything of it." Some conditions at Dow have improved since I95J. Kenemore is quick to point out. But as he sees H, the corporate attitude has never changed. "I have tried to get the com pany to place smaD cards on equipment warning repairmen of particular dangers in certain areas of the plant," he says. "Dow refuses. They say, `You knew this wasn't an ice cream plant when you came to work here.' " But in truth, many employees donor realize the dangers they wiU face when they come to work at Dow. H. F. Miller worked 23 years as a rigger at Dow before poor health forced him to retire in 1913 at the age of 5S. Now he putters around his Lake Jackson home or pals with friends at the union haD. A glance at his face shows he has paid his dues. Miller has a huge, round head and a crew cut. The aeased skin on his face and neck is so distinctive that he looks like an Oliphant cartoon caricature of a hardened, gritiied roughneck. In 1968 Miller was knocked unconscious by a sudden blast of chlorine gas at the plant. He was taken to the Dow Industrial Medicine Facility. Electrocardiograms were taken, and TIME Is your most precious resource. It Is that measurable asset which universally limits your opportunities... your productivity ... your profits. We offer you TIME. TRAVELAIRE: Immediate Air Transportation for Key Personnel and Critical Production Components. Corporate prop-jet service Certified air carrier All weather capability throughout North America, Central America, and the Carri bean. *Cu$ton Cirr uiccwx ) BFG28858 23960009 9 H IC he wu placed on oxygen overnight. He spent (he next three day) there. TWo yean later, when he began haring severe chest end irm pairu, his personal doc tor sent him to a Galveston hospital for two weeks, then to Houston for an arteriogram that found a badly damaged heart muscle and circulation problems. - 'The doe asked me when I'd had my heart attack," Miller says in seeming disbelief his own experience. "I said I hadn't had any heart attack. `The hell you didn't,' the doc said. 'You had t severe heart attack at one time--and you would have fell it when happened.' '' Miller thought back to when he had been overcome by the chlorine fumes; that was the only time he could remember that he might have had a heart attack and not known it His cardiologist asked Dow for the elec trocardiogram and medical records from Miller's three-day suy. "But they told him they had no records of my ever being there, Miller says. Federal law requires Dow to re tain all employee medical records for the dllration of the employee's tenure at the com. pany. But William Fishbeck, Dow's Texas Division medical director, admits, "It is not unusual for us to look back and not find a particular event." In 1974, six yean after his Dow accident Miller underwent triple-bypass heart surgery in Houston. "They're a cold-blooded bunch of people." he now says of Dow's medical and health management. "They play every thing like they're afraid people are going to get to them. They make you feel guiltyeven if you complain of a backache, they try to make it seem like you did something to your back on your own time." The stories pour out of this union hall: of a Dow employee electrocuted by supposedly faulty equipment on the job, and subsequent claims ofcollusion by Dow and local author ities to blame the accident on an unrelated heart attack; of lost or missing medical rec ords; of still more employees in their last days of fights against all forms of cancer. Jake Willis of Freeport worked 27 years at Dow before retiring in 1979. An outgoing and relaxed sort, he doesn't seem to have any ax to grind. But his message is dear. "No, they don't WANT to kiB you--that's killing themselves, that's killing their company," he says. "It's almost as if they talk themselves into believing that they're doing the right thing, that there really is no danger." In an analytic rather than accusatory fash ion, union representative Kenemorc dis cusses Dow's top brass. "Dow is a terribly competitive, overieaious place, even within its own ranks." he says. "Those managers would throw a rock in front of one another to get ahead. The company gets so wrapped up in itself that it begins to think it is the law, dial it must defend itself from everything and everybody who would cause problems." Kcnemore paints a portrait of a town bom and raised on chemicals, its faith in chemi cals reinforced daily by a seemingly benevo lent corporate parent. One thinks back to Laura Tod, widow of Joe Tod. Joe worked from 1941 to 1946--the same years as did two-thirds of Dow's brain cancer victims--in Dow's acid and caustic plants before moving to the employee relations office, where he worked for the next 29 years. In 1974 a letter Joe wrote to the company was published in Dow's annual report. Mrs. Tod proudly shows off her copy. The letter begins, "How can I express to you what it means to work for a company like Dow?" Two years later he was dead from a brain Junior. "Dow was wonderful to my husband," Mrs. Tod now says. "And I wouldn't dean my bathroom if I didn't trust chemicals." "This town has grown up believing that if Dow were to fold, then the community would fold," Keneroore explains. "That means the industry as well as the Wdnganen's that supplies goods for industrial em ployees. In Bmospon, the average man is simply afraid to make too much noise." Yet if there is tragedy in Brarospcn (and most townfoik will assure you there is not), it goes beyond the residents' not knowing or caring about possible dangers around them. It may be, instead, that many do know what is around them but are too proud--or too afraid--to talk about it. There's Rocky Hol den. who thinks back to his laughing spells and ponders, "Can you imagine, thinking you need to see a psychiatrist?" There's Jerry Miller, who kept losing his left shoe but was too embarrassed to complain. There's H. F. Miller, who today has a friend at Dow with brain cancer who is "as ashamed of that as I would be about VD." And (hen there's Jack Stone. n the surface. Jack Stone's story is not unlike Joe Tod's or Jerry Miller's, or those ofthe other 22 Dow employ Oees who died of brain cancer. It is told by his widow, Mary Stone, a charming woman who wean her 30-plus yean with exceptional grace. Her dothes are immaculate, the living room in her Freeport home spotless and tasteful. Jack Stone worked at Dow for almost J4 yean, fust in the chlorine cells, later as a boilermaker. In his later yean he really wanted only one thing--to retire with Mary, who herself had just retired after 30 yean with the phone company. "He was really bent on retiring so we could spend some time together," Mary says. "He used to. come home and teO me all of his plans, where we would go, what we would do." Like Tod and Miller and Holden, Stone truly enjoyed his job, according to Mary. JBut he did have a bad back. She remembers him "going to work sometimes so hunched 03 C BFG28859 1 ifation To Living Lounging Dining zr home. We can design c cost of adding another and quiet pleasure. It will value to your home. . and constructions^ the tnd remodeling projects. ments jeBank Member F.D.I.C. rcial Bank in Bria Area Telephone 713 627 1910 liat Serveshares, Inc. SssSrs-saSSf. LEPffONES telephones 1 mitable ": ft ' sweero^'iurf ') <71-7203 - ~ '_-i.. u,~; .. wr-r-=^si.v. - m.-.^'4 r..: ^ I I I up he looked like * freak." Doctors said he had a deteriorating disc, but (here wasn't much they could do about it. Mary says he never complained. In June 1976 Stone's personality began changing. "He would talk constantly." ha wife says, squinting her eyes as if fascinated by the recollection. "He never used to talk much about what went on at work, but now he'd come home and talk all the time about safety. He was hooked on it. I told him safe ty was the supervisors' job. but he said he couldn't stand to see other people getting hurt all the time. And he would just talk on and on." When Stone went in for a back checkup, Dow 's medical staff took note of his behav ior and sent him to a psychologist, then to a psychiatrist. "Everybody thinks I'm crazy." Stone told his wife with a laugh. On June 24 Dow's industrial medicine physician, on a routine check of Stone's ach ing back, saw in Stone's behavior something he didn't tike. He apparently told Stone he was suffering from "tension." That same af ternoon. Stone was admitted to Brazosport's Community Hospital. Jack Stone's story is different from those of other Dow- employees because he left be hind a personal diary. Inside are glimpses of a man Mary Slone today admits she never knew. As he entered the hospital. Stone, un aware of the tumor within his brain and un aware that others would soon see his private thoughts, recorded fears and worries (hat only he. as a boilermaker at Dow Chemical in Brazosport, would know. Thunday. June 14-- Industrial Medicine Ap pointment. They didn't even pvt me heal treat ment??? I tried ro explain that first things should come first. He say that back trouble would come later--but I need to get treatment for other prob lem in hospital___ I say I'm goingtocJtcck in hos pital. but I need to go to shop--change clothes, give car keys to Rider He say they don't want me in plant right now.... All of sudden, two nurses come hurrying in. wrap amt around me and lead me out.... I'm escorted to Community Hospital. All this escorting and rushing me in hospital hurt me. and excited me more than anything in my life. . . . What I couldn't understand--why no heat treatment, why all this escorting??? Talk about tension!!!! AJI this really shook me up. . . . this was terrible w ay to sun treating me for tension, or w harever. ... This was the most ridiculous going on I have ever experienced.. .. Actually, the way I've been treated on job--my tension naturally high--this should be called a job related illness-- The way I was treated--naturally create tensions. ???????? Friday. June 2d. morning--l it ill say my tension and whatever--was brought on by the way I have been treated, and should be on Industrial sick leave --????? I wanted to be on Ind. sick leave, see my family doctor, and let him recommend a psycholo gist to ice--but |thc company doctor] say no......... Friday. June 2S, tjtemoon--Industrial sick leave? The way |`v< been treated over the last yean --enough to cause anyone tension or whatever____ I was being downgraded for talking and visiting I f --my production down and holding others up. I bdi<c I could hae done better when back geu better. Done some jobs by self--where others would have needed help. ... the very things I thought was right seemed to get me deeper in water: I) advising some on how to do job. 2) Leave my job and show apprentice how to do job. if I could )) Safety--should have kept mouth shut-- but thought I was helping. If t get back on job-- 1U have to male a complete reverse of m> safety thoughts and job improvement. Saturday. June 24--They art pulling the strings --it's all right with tne--"this psycho nuff." but I might have wanted to set an older one--(hinting maybe he'd be more experienced. I could see. and I certainly wasn't worse than lot of others--mon overly criticizing toward me. Stone's penmanship, clear and neat on June 24, is slowly becoming that of a firs grader. [Vndated\--Co see tny supervisor--get in appointment with retirement people at Personnel. ... Be sure and don't agree to any retirement that will stop too shortly--like I heard happened to sev eral of our men--w ho signed up wtong agreement. lUndaied]--According to |lhc company doctor), my work has ruined my cartilege in the right knee. He says this very common on-job in jury--in and out of shells on knee, also knees tak ing a beating when tunning large air guns, impacts, etc. I know my knees get so sore couldn't hardly crawl back in shell sometime--they got OK in a few days--just, kept working like always. I think back and knee should be mentioned in reports to . .. Dow. \Undated\-I've done some real accurate work on my retirement income. Don't know tax right but I'm not off far--I figured high. I think my in come win be $62J per week. GREAT! No more bang iron and working them old condensers. I know 1'B get to feeling better. Al other men looked so much belter aftes they retire. (Mr breathe some terrible fumes out there. After a 16-month ordeal that took him through surgery for removal of a lemon-size brain tumor, a second round of surgery for removal of a blood dot in the brain, radia tion treatments that left him paralyzed and bedridden tor ten months, horrifying sei zures, and loss of his ability to swallow, eat. talk, or sec, Jack Stone died on October 13, 1977, of brain cancer. Mary Stone says Dow has been awfully good to her since. She has a pension, and they look in on her occasionally. SECRETARY FOR A DAY (continued from page 47) But I vetoed the suggestion. Yes. Dresser's name would deservedly get dragged through the mud. but how about my name? No, I had done no wrong, but I could see the head lines now: Man Sues To Be Secretary. The media, often blind to the intricacy and sub tlety of compter issues, tend to pounce on the oddity of an event, the entertaining thing that viewers or readers can instantly digest. In this case 1 was the oddity, and in the twodimensional universe of print or broadcast BFG28860 HflMCDO Ai E> froi SOI for res an gK lai of fa \v: N Co $ S DANIEL J. ROSS, ET UX Vs. No. 90-4837 CONOCO, INC., ET AL FOURTEENTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT COURT STATE OF LOUISIANA PARISH OF CALCASIEU STATE OF LOUISIANA To THE B.F. GOODRICH CO. thru its agent for process of service: C.T. CORPORATION SYSTEMS, 8550 United Plaza Blvd., Baton Rouge, La. 70809 of said Parish of Louisiana, defendant - in said suit: You are hereby cited to appear before said Court, for said E. Baton Rouge Parish, and to comply with the demand contained in the petition of ELIZABETH ELAINE ROSS, ET AL PLAINTIFF'S FIFTH SUPPLEMENTAL & AMENDING PETITION against you, certified copy of which petition accompanies this citation, or file your answers thereto in writing in the office of the Clerk of Court, at the Court House, in the City of Lake Charles, in said Parish, within fifteen (IS) days after the ser vice hereof, under penalty of default. CERTIFIED COPY OF ORIG. PET. AND FIRST, SECOND, THIRD & FOURTH Witness the Honorable Judges of said Court SUPPLEMENTLA & AMENDING PETITION ATTACHED HERETO AND MADE A PART HEREOr this. 21st Issued and delivered Pi . day of. Sept, A.D., 199 JL. Sept. 26 -___________ __________ A.D., 199A___ ----------7^---------- Deputy Clerk of said Court A TF BFG28861 1to0 % to see -irj V kow the scare started/page 1M ' By BOA INMAN . . Post Reporter - *!..*? Ty * The Honston Part, 1*71 ` " An unusually high number -of workers ; at Union Carbide's Texas City plant died of a type of brain tumor that has been linked to the cancer-causing agent, vinyl chloride, federal health authorities con firmed Thursday. The substance was once manufactured and is now processed at the large chemi cal and plastics plant. A top Labor Department official said scientists associate the chemical with a cancerous tumor known as glioblastoma multiform. The Houston Post has learned medical certificates from at least nine Texas City workers who died between 1962 and 1919 listed that type of tumor as the cause of death. About <55 death certificates have been examined thus far by health authorities. In addition, federal authorities say, a 10th plant employee -- still living -- has been diagnosed as "probably" having the same form of tumor. Health records of current and former Texas City plant workers -- 8,000 to 10,JPOO people -- are being reconstructed for fstudy by scientists working for the Occu pational Safety and Health Administra tion and the National Institute for Occu pational Safety and Health. Those records, which company officials describe as "sketchy" and "dif ficult to piece together," go back to 1941. "The company feels this Is not a crisis that poses any immediate exposure haz ards for current employees," said plant manager Damon Engle Thursday. "Practically all of the affected employ ees worked for substantial periods of time from the mid-'40s through the present In a period in which neither the government nor the company had any reason to suspect vinyl chloride." The company, be said, is "not yet ready" to assume vinyl chloride Is re sponsible for the deaths, as OSHA sug gests. ' "We do think that if vinyl chloride should ultimately be Implicated that OSHA and the industry should take credit for recognizing hazards at this stage. "Our plant has been In compliance and remains'in compliance" with cur rent chemical safety standards, he said. The joint OSHA-NIOSH Investigation was prompted by a worker complaint, said Eula Bingham, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health In Washington. - The complaint was received at a local OSHA office Nov. 27 of last year and an Investigation launched Dec. 12. Bingham said. A team of three scientists from NIOSH, two from OSHA and OSHA area technical personnel made the prelimi nary study. "The company has proved to be very ' cooperative thus far in our joint study of this situation," Bingham noted. The total number of brain tumors found so far "would appear to be higher than expected" at a plant like that at Texas City, which currently employs about 2.000 workers, and represents an "unusually high incidence" of such ' Please see Deaths/page ISA - February 16, 1979 BFG28862 OOOOZOSO* 23964000 Deaths at plant probed deaths Bingtams4jd. .. D lit too early Md hr# - w'"lc *urr would lli/T] V-' icnvaflabie,-. ' - .* 11"80***!-- n--ude- Carbide __________ _ .... . II I! I II ii <i VVC 000020503 BFG28863 -rfr t 2 % CT System Service of Process Transmittal Form Baton Rouge,Louisiana 10/04/1994 Via Federal Express (2nd Day) TO: LINDA F REEDY THE B F GOODRICH COMPANY 3925 EMBASSY PARKWAY AKRON OHIO 44333-0000 RECEIVED OCT 0 6 199* RE: PROCESS SERVED IN LOUISIANA T.E. LASZLO FOR THE B.F. GOODRICH COMPANY Domestic State: NY ENCLOSED ARE COPIES OF LEGAL PROCESS RECEIVEO BY THE STATUTORY AGENT OF THE ABOVE COMPANY AS FOLLOWS: 1. TITLE OF ACTION: Daniel J. Ross, et ux vs Conoco, Inc., et al TO: The B. F. Goodrich Co. 2. DOCUMENT(S) SERVEO: Citation, Plaintiffs Fifth Supplemental and Amended Petition, Order and attachments 3. COURT: 14th Judicial District Court Parish of Calcasieu, Louisiana Case Number 90-4837 4. NATURE OF ACTION: Fifth Supplemental and Amending Petition in the above entitled case alleging injuries due to exposure to vinyl chloride. s. on whom process was served: CT Corporation System, Baton Rouge, Louisiana c. date ano hour of service: By Process server on 10/04/1994 at 09:00 7. appearance or answer due: within 15 days 8. attorney(S): William B. Baggett Baggett McCall & Burgess 3006 Country Club Road Lake Charles, La 70605 s. remarks: Name discrepancy noted. This information telephoned your office today. ouoeacez signed CT Corporation System per address Mary A. Belton 8550 United Plaza Boulevard Baton Rouge, LA 70809 SOP WS 0000123123 Information contained on this transmittal form is recorded for C T Corporation System's record keeping purposes only and to permit quick reference for the recipient. This information does not constitute a legal opinion as to the nature ot action, the amount of damages, the answer date, or any information that can be obtained from the documents themselves. The recipient is responsible lor interpreting the documents and for taking the appropriate action.rO BFG28864 DOCUMENT NUMBER: / Pulled for Attorney-Client Privilege / Work Product