Document QMKy3ppV3Z4Xbb8EDyQzbwjYo

M'. As. % X7 '"Psge 12/Section 1` Houston Chronicle Thursday, December 3,1981 Studies differ over numerous cases at Texas City plant 'BYTOM MORAN . V/ . Chronicle Staff '.. '^ . . cancer was caused by some chemical in Englejplant manager, and Deborah Van the plant. J - -- .......... Brunt, a NIOSH representative. . - They even disagree on the significance Engle said that if the company's study . Both Union Carbide officials and gov ernment investigators who conducted independent studies, of brain cancer deaths in the company's Texas City plant of the higher rate of brain cancer deaths was broadened to include the non-white J at the plant. workers in the NIOSH study, there would NIOSH, based in Rockville, Md., said in be only 21 deaths and one additional case : a report issued Wednesday that it found ' of brain cancer. The 22nd person is alive. . agree that the disease strikes plant work ers at a rate about 2-to-3 times the nation al average. But, that's about all Union Carbide and the National Institute of Occupational 23 brain cancer deaths among former em ployees of the plant since it opened in' 1941. Union Carbide, in its study released two weeks ago, said it found 12. deaths between 1941 and Dec. 31,1977.x he said. Epidemiologists at the M.D. Anderson , Hospital and Tumor Institute here say it is not uncommon to see such differences, in comparable studies. ' Safety and Health can agree on. . J-; But, Union Carbide studied only white That's because there can be different The two studies disagree on the number male workers at the plant while NIOSH of victims and on the possibility that the -studied all male employees, say Damon (See INVESTIGATORS.Page 12) 4j i- V: C'~ Investigators agree on cancer rate, disagree on possible causes (From Page 1) ' criteria used to define brain cancer cases and there can be studies of different groups, they said. For instance, one study may focus on all workers at a plant, including secre taries and office workers, while another may only look at persons who work close ly with chemicals, the epidemiologists say. Studies also can differ on how they determine what is a brain cancer death, the epidemiologists say. One may count only death certificates, while another study group may check hospital records and talk to the workers' physicians or plant employee whose death certificate-) include only cases in which brain cancer listed brain cancer, in fact, died of lung ' was determined by an autopsy, they say. cancer. ' Ms. Van Brent said Wednesday that Engle said the company study included NIOSH investigators counted death cer only the limited number of current and tificates that listed brain tumors or brain former employees -- about 6,600 instead cancer as the cause of death. She said the of the approximately 9,000 studied by i study was conducted that way because NIOSH -- because the company thought it 1 that is the way national brain cancer was simply following ground rules agreed death rates are figured. to in February 1978 when the studies She said her agency does not dispute began. the accuracy of Union Carbide's re "If NIOSH had used the same rules, search, only its conclusions. they would have found the same 12 we Engle says the company went further did," Engle said. "We were not aware j than the death certificates and checked that NIOSH would extend the study and autopsies and other medical records. change the population (studied).'' For instance, Engle said, one former "We were aware of the additional cases t reported in the NIOSH study). We looked able combination of chemicals might at the exposure and job assignments of the cause of the disease. them all and it wouldn't have changed She said a small increase above the our conclusions,'1 he said. ^ _ expected number of brain cancer cases Engle said there was no correlation be over the period could be written off to a tween an employee's work assignment or statistical error, but not a rate two or exposure to any chemical and develop three times the national average, "It's ment of brain cancer. The company found not likely to be a sampling error," she that no brain cancer cases have been said. reported among workers who were first ' Engle said that while the company is hired in 1953 or subsequent years. concerned about the high rate, it is much "Nothing happened m 1953 that we can figure, and we nave looked hard at what. our neighbors did," Engle said. lower that other types of cancer found to be caused by workers' exposure to chemi cals. In most of those cases, investigators Ms. Van Brent said the Union Carbide have found the cancer rate 80 to 100 tunes study did not take into account that a the national average, Engle said. Also, he points out, available statistics are inadequate to compare workers at the Union Carbide plant to the rest of the Texas Gulf Coast or to the state as a whole. Because of the excellent medical facill- ties in the Houston area, there is "bound to be an accurate.diagnosis," he said. "National numbers can be misleading, Engle said that he recently read a simi lar study that showed that in Nigeria the rate of brain cancer is 1 per KW.OOO per year while in Rochester, Minn., the rate is 15 per 100,000. There are no petrochemical plants in Rochester, he said, but it is the location of the famed Mayo Clinic. j- \ \ | I j UCC 096510