Document QJy37JL022vQgok7L2e3xXVjk

COPIED 12053 - 12053 |Many Workers Still Face 1 ,^ dwe!2?ef^iode medical under die Federal law are those exposed promulgated by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety] "The act has done n great] To handle "emergencies" like] j vinyl chloride, the institute `baa been forced to divert funds relevance^Htinaa exposure^! Rather mm recommend] "safe" exposure levels, DrJ Health Peril Despite Law and Health Administration deal to improve the worker's (O.SRA.) at a rate of only one perceptions about the situa and personnel from other es sential but less immediate1 Hammond and Dr. Key believe' that industry should adopt a year. At the same time, in tion, but it hasn't vet done ' tasks, such as developing protective work practices that! dustry is introducing some 400 -much to improve the situa- i standards that might head off eliminate worker exposure to new chemicals each year. ition," said Anthony Mazzocchi, other vinyl chlorides before all agents--whether or not they] -- - I nearly all of which are untested legislative director of the Oil, workers succumb to their ef have been proved harmful. , *y JANE E. HOOT The recent discovery of fatal _____ ' for possible long-term effects .Chemical and Atomic Workers on the workers who International Union. fects. Last year,* the ordinarily Such work practices wejg recommended by the institute liver cancer among vinyl jg Workcri Buffers a job-related ^*5*- . . .. . Franklin Wallick of the sedate and sober director of] for 14 cancer-causing industrial chloride wotkeri baa.focused utness or injury. The Public There is virtually no testing United Automobile Workers, attention of govern- Health Service estimates that " combtnations or substances who wrote a book called, "The American Worker: An Endan w SrSS"ZiSmedicine on the of toxic chemicel*, dusts, noise. known, suspected end as yet! unsuspected health hazards heat, cold, radiation and other! Industrial condition! each vw results in the death of at least gered Species," said that for the when combined, although most part workers are still leading occupational hazard- |"the human guinea pigs for in asbestoe--is known to greatly dustrial processes." that face 60 million working 100,000 workers and the de velopment of disabling occupa Derate the passage three tional diseases in 390,000 more. ^ , "-rfiTM.!1 heRaelthseabrcehlieervse InthaotcCcuopuanttiloensasl increase the risk of lung can In interviews last week, la cer only in workers who smoke bor, industry, government and cigarettes. university sources agreed that "The long-term eFfects of the although the occupational vast majority of chemical and health law was a giant and Safety and Health Act, granting thousands of others succumb to physical agents used in indus essential step in the right di every American the right to Insidious job-related diseases work without Job-induced not yet discovered by science, threats to Ufa. and health, the Industry source* estimate overwhelming majority of th,t "ly. between 5 and 15 worker.s7a7re7n^ot yet proterted p{JeJ,r cecnotmopfrwehoernkseirvseareccoomvpearendy try have not been proved, and rection, the realities of current practically no research is be Administration funding have ing conducted to find out what {deprived it of much-needed these effects are," Dr. Jeanne muscle. | M. Stillman and Dr. Susan M. Under the set, the National! Daum state in their new book, the institute. Dr. Marcus Key,! chemicals covered by an emer exploded with exasperation: i gency standard issued last; "N.l.O.S.H. is not expanding,! spring. The institute advocates ft is shrinking. It is getting is similar approach to vinyt the proverbial meat ax. . . . ! chloride, a gaseous chemical} Our present laboratory space in the plastics industry that ir isn't even adequate for any the last month has been linked kind of research, ft is sub to angiosarcoma of the liver, standard. . . . We have been an extremely rare cancer. In frozen on hirings for most of; nine workers at four different our existence, and we are! plants. losing key staff right and left! A further problem In gain because we don't have the ing worker protection under grade points to promote them. the act has been the slowness ... I don't think N.l.O.S.H. of the Labor Department in is a viable organization at this issuing new exposure standards time." In an Interview last week, nd its reluctance to assume full enforcement responsibili-l Iby the law s provisions. For medical departments, which "Work Is Dangerous to Your Institute for Occupational1 lack of this protection, hun-j have the potential for detect- Health." Safety and Health (N.l.O.S.H) dreds of workers ara ^dyingl ing work-related health threats. But Dr. Irving J. Seiikoff, di was set up to survey indus rector of environmental sci trial health problems, conduct] ;each day from occupational diseases. . Enforceable Federal stand-, The Government Accounting aids to protect currently exist worker health for only 450| Office acknowledges that there of the estimated 15,000 chemi has not been nearly enough cal and physical agents to ences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, aaid, "For scien tists to worry about what we don't yet know when nothing is being done about what we already know is a copout." He needed research and develop, new standards for known and; potential occupational hazards. But in the wide bureaucraucVy-: of the Department of Health,, Education and Welfare, the in-1 money and staff allocated to( which wonera are exposed, !noted that even if there were titute has thus far been make a dent in the vast prob and experts in occupational enough data to develop pro treated like an unwanted step lem of occupational health. In addition, fundamental stien health say that most of these standards are inadequate and unenforced. tific ' iledge is lacking upon} For vinyl chloride, for ex- tective standards for all known and potential dangers, the La bor Department would be hard put to enforce them with only child. According to a recent anal ysis by the Government counting Office, Ac:*l wbich uj base remedial actions, ample, the existing Federal 600 Federal inspectors and hy-i 'budget of about 524-million and without more funds the standard is 10 times higher gienists to canvass nearly five and a staff limited in size (600) necessary research la not forth coming. than what most industrial users themselves adopted years ago, and is infinitely higher than the million workpieces. I During its first eight months, O.S.H.A. inspectors visited 17,- and professional level have severely hampered the insti tute's potential accomplish zero exposure level that labor 743 workplaces. At this rate, ments. and university scientists rec-( it would take them more than. As a result. In its first two item for both government and;latnmend. | 200 years to visit each one; and a half years, the institute medicine. once. If the staff were ex-1 has been able to develop the Yet, each year one of every THE NEW YORK panded to the original projec criteria for only 16 new stand tion of 2.000, it would still ards for hazardous materials, Continued on Fage 20, TINES take about 50 years to com although the institute's list of plete the rounds of workplaces. high priority agents exceeds In thousands of plants 400. March 4, 1974 throughout the country, work Dr. Key said the situation had not yet improved. "If any thing, it's worse," he remarked. The institute's efforts are not aided by the fact that oc cupational health has been j virtually ignored by the medical which regards it asi Ya -less--than-g-lamorous spec-ia-l ty. Only a handful of univeri sities have departments of ; occupational health and fewer jthan a dozen physicians enter the field each year, the majority becoming company doc tors. The institute also faces the scientific problem of how to determine when a substance is safe. As Dr. E. Cuyler Ham mond of the American Cancer] Society said: "Negative results in testing a substance for cancer-producing properties are meaningless,] and a clever-enough researcher can make almost anything in duce cancer in animals, but his findings may have po *iej. Thus hr, the Institute has acted on only two of the in stitute's 16 proposed standards -- asbestos and carcinogen*-- and in both cases the action resulted in a weaker standard than the institute had rec ommended. Under Administration prom sure -- and to the distress of occupational health activitistg -- the Labor Department has been seeking to turn enforce^ ment of the Federal regulations back to state occupational safety and health divisions. Robert E. Nagle, general counsel for the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Commit tee who is the main author of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. said that the states traditionally have had little in terest or expertise.in occupa tional health (as opposed to safety), and that state officials are likely to bo more suscep tible to pressure from local in dustry than Federal enforce ment agents would. ers do not even know what chemicals they work with since, to protect trade secrets, the substances are given only code numbers. And unless a ASI 000012053 r-ederal standard exists, the company is not required to