Document RJvrxZnrZLJ4kz946bXL6VN4v

Education, Religion, Mental Health workers may be Inhaling as many at 12^-billion potentially lethal fibers each year when a level one-fifth that hat already been shown to product cancer in man. What Is Being Bone This week r Senate subcommittee Is bolding hearings on alleged Labor Department foot-dragging on asbestos standards. 11m charges are that tha Nlxoo Administration deliberately went MQ on industry In return for nttipiy pledges. About Jobs That Can Kill , i By JAKE E. BRODY Tha Government Is now proposing 1 that the exposure limit or 500 parts of vinyl chloride per million parts of air ba lowered to "no delectable level." or ona part per million parts of air. Tha proposal is based on the scientific tenet that there Is no "safe" level of a cancer-causing agent The recent disclosure that four workers in a vinyl chloride plant h'd developed a rare and fatal liver cancer Jed to an industrywide search and the discovery, so far, of 21 such esses. The Department of Labor has con cluded hearings on new limits to worker exposure to vinyl chloride, which is a chemical that forms the basis for thousands of plastic products, ranging from tablecloths and phono graph records to water pipes and in sulation. At the hearings, company represen tatives asserted the ruling would be '`economically not feasible." It would, they said, shut down the entire in dustry and result in the loss of per haps 700,000 jobs. Labor sources condemned the conclusion as "hyster ical," and Dr. Irving 2. Selikoff of Mount Sinai Hospital, an authority on occupational diseases, pointed out that the Dow Chemical Company had al ready brought its levels down to below 10 parts per million, with every indica tion that they can be readily reduced still further. The vinyl cloride findings are only the latest of many instances of oc cupationally caused cancers. The first was in 1775. when Pcrcivall Pott, an English surgeon, published a medical report describing a high incidence of cancer of the scrotum among the chimney sweeps of London. Dr. rott's report inspired a ruling three years later by the Danish Chimney Sweep ers Guild that its members should hive daily baths to prevent accumula tion of career-causing soot. Relatively few subsequent discoveries of jobrelated cancers or other occupational diseases have resulted in prompt pro tective action. Danger and Delay Benzidine, a chemical used in the dye industry, was first described in 1929 by a British factory doctor as jj.xpecied of causing cancer of the bladder. In 1935, an American doctor. Mitchell R. Zaven, began compiling bladder cancer cases among wnikers jn a Cincinnati plant. But it was not until 1972 that Dr. Zavon disclosed his findings to Frdcral authorities responsible for protecting the health A Classic Battle of American workers. And it was not until a year ago that Federal rules took effect to prevent worker ex posure to benzidine arid 13 other known and tuspected occupational carcinogens. Asbestos Is a ubiquitous fibrous mineral used for everything from food processing filters to construction ma terials to brake linings. It has been known for two decades to cause in variably fatal cancers and disabling lung disea'Workers arc still not protected, despite a Government ruling. Two years ago, the Department of Labor's Occupational Safely and Health Administration decided to lower the worker exposure standard from five to two fibers per cubic centimeter of air. But at the industry's urging, the agenry delayed the effective date of the ruling until 197G. As a result , Until the hearings, industry had been extremely cooperative in helping researchers define and control the vinyl chloride hazard. But now the fight is shaping up along classic lines: labor vs. industry and industry vs. Government regulation. And there Is every Indication that similar battles will be waged in the years to come. Some 15.000 chemical and physical agents are in industrial use now; hundreds are introduced each year, most of which are untested for disease-causing potential. Assistant Secretary of Labor John H. Stender, head of the three-year-old Occupa tional Safety and Health Administra tion, has warned that Government action to protect worker health has only just begun. As he put it recently: "Research so enthusiastically poured Into finding profitable uses for new substances must be expanded to include determin ing how safe these substances are. 'Any doubt must be resolved on the side of the employee." (More Ideas & Trends, Page 16.) \V, *v ' OLX 2170