Document RJwE8Z5Rdp5kKYGENbg1wgOp8

FILE NAME: International Harvester (INTH) DATE: 1975 & 1972 DOC#: INTH104 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Newspaper Articles - Warning of Asbestos Hazards  V m m f P i ' B.pa-^g.r Vs, J.X. . Date_____ t o / r l / S V .... h j 2BE O J . S - - F . p //< r/a T , HEW Warns of Asbestos Hazard in Work With Brake Linings Spackling Mixtures (and other members of the household) to significant concentrations of asbestos," they said. The scientists said that, even more im portant. none of the spackling compounds' contained warning labels or indications that it contained hazardous materials. They' A Wall Street J ournal News Round up Ificlent to cause disease. The study, by scien- urged that such labels be required, with in-! Government agencies renewed warnings 1tists at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in structions for safer usage. j about exposure to asbestos, a commonly New York who have studied the harmful ef The Mount Sinai scientists were also re-| used mineral that scientists say can cause fects of asbestos in various occupations, ap sponsible, in part, for the NI03H warnings! serious and disabling lung disease, including peared recently in Science, a publication of about brake-drum linings. The NIOSH letter' fatal Jung cancer. the American Association for the Advance noted that the Mount Sinai investigators had The National Institute for Occupational ment of Science. determined that workers engaged, in the Safety and Health, a research arm of the Commenting on the report, David P. maintenance and repair of automobile and Department of Health, Education and Wei-Rail, director of the National Institute of, truck brake linings "are exposed to poten- fare, said in a letter to health experts thatiEnvironmental Health Sciences, said.)Hally hazardous levels of airborne asbestos garage personnel who change or grind "These findings suggest th1_e__p_os1sibilit"y of: dust.'1 brake linings are being exposed to poten-1 significant exposure during home construe-! One of the scientists said in an interview tiallv hazardous levels of airborne asbestos. Ition and repair." jthat particulai ly large amounts of danger- The letter, written by J. William Lloyd.] "Additional work by the (Mount Sinai) cus asbestos dust.were created in mainte- director of NIOSH's office of occupational 1scientists suggests that members of the en-lnance shops where the large .asbestos 1in- health surveillance, said that although a Itire household or other occupants . . . may|ings of trucks and buses were ground to fit' systematic study of these workers hadn't|also inhale asbestos fibers," Mr. Rallithe brake drum or were resurfaced afteri been made, levels of asbestos dust are hiarh|added. use. He said that the changing of asbestos; enough to cause damage ar.c! that four can-i "These results are alarming when con- jbrake linings for automobiles was ai.-o dan., cer deaths associated with such work had sidered in relation to other evidence being gerous because mechanics usually use a n ' been reported. accumulated by the Mount Sinai group that air hose to blow out the loose dust after re -; Another arm of HEW, meanwhile, said it indicates that far less than the intense expo moving the old lining. j found "alarming" a study that showed var sure of the work environment is capable of NIOSH estimated that as many as SOO.COO; ious spackling compounds used for home re producing asbestos-related disease," he workers are exposed to asbestos in the man- j pairs contain concentrations of asbestos suf- said. ufacturing and servicing of brake linings] The Environmental Sciences Laboratory arid clutches, most of whom are auto me-; of Mount Sinai, which under the direction of chanics. The agency recommended, as an ] Dr. Irving J. Selikoff has been the leader in interim procedure, that repair shops desig-i research on the dangers of asbestos, re rate a segregated area for all brake and! ported in Science, that it had analyzed 15 clutch repairs and that signs be posted ini samples of spackling, patching and jointing;those areas pointing out the dangers of as compounds purchased in New York City andjbestos dust. It also said that repairmen! found that five contained appreciable ]should wear respirators when doing such amounts of asbcstos."Use of these materials] work, and that strong vacuum cleaners be in home repair work (for example, mixing,!used to remove asbestos dust from brake sanding and cleanup) may expose the user | drums before working on them. sJ f <o 2^ VOL. C L X X IX XO. 112 ^Perilous Particles ^ "Tiny Asbestos Fibers Pose a Health Threat To Workers and Public ' Long Exposure Can Result In Lung Disease, Cancer; Industry Seeks Solutions `The Bodies Are in the Street' By Bap.p.y New.man Staff r.cportcr of T he W all Street J ournal I NEW YORK--At Joseph Marino's gas sta/ tion on the fringe of Manhattan's Spanish Har/ lem, the proven method of cleaning an old I brake assembly goes like this: Pull off the ( wheel, aim an air hose at the exposed parts ' and blow the dust out. I A cloud of brown dust invariably flies right I into the mechanics' faces, says Mr. Marino. But it doesn't bother them. "We got masks and everything," Mr. Marino shrugs. "The guys don't use them. What the hell." t What the mechanics don't seem to know-- like thousands of other mechanics--is that the brown dust is dangerous. Brake linings are ' made of asbestos. And if a mechanic breathes ' in enough dust from the worn out linings it could eventually kill him. The lethal quality of tiny, Indestructible as bestos fibers that lodge In the lung is well known. Widely publicized studies by Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine lead him to predict that of the roughly 250,000 asbestos industry workers today, about 95,000 will die unnecessarily of occupational cancer. "In the next 10 to 15 years we will enter the as bestos cancer era," says Dr. Selikoff. "This is one of the great disasters of our time." Hazards for Others, Too The asbestos industry is well aware of the problem and is taking action to combat it, though critics say the steps aren't as drastic as I the situation demands. But asbestos industry j workers aren't the only ones who might fall I prey to the lung cancers and other diseases i ; caused by the mineral's irritating fibers. It's j likely that millions of workers in other indus- j tries using asbestos fibers could be affected, as i well as ordinary people who have come into - contaet with asbestos in the atmosphere. r_ Perhaps the most tragic fact Is that for - those who have already been sufficiently ex posed, changes in procedures and standards of asbestos use--including a new set announced yesterday by the Department of Labor--are | meaningless. It takes as many rs 40 years] after the first exposure for asbestos-related dl-1 senses to surface. Controls Instituted now w ill! indeed have an effect, but not for decades. Harry Bailey is one man who isn't likely to find much solace in the new standards. Mr. Bailey isn't an asbestos worker. He's a brick layer in a Mobil Oil Corp. refinery alongside the Delaware River in Paulsboro, N.J. He has been working at the plant for 33 years,' and every year he has gone to the company medi cal -department for a chest X-ray. "They never said there was anything wrong with me," says 54-year-old Mr. Bailey, and In- j deed he has thus far developed no outward! _ symptoms. But a few months ago he and 18 if /fJlMTiPP'S h other workers from the refinery went to Mount I I W K Sinai for an examination, and every one them proved to have scarred lungs--a sign o f^ asbestosis, a nonmalignant lung disease. (Mobil has refused to release his medical rec ords to the New York doctors, Mr. Bailey says. The company declines to comment on the mat ter.) First Scarring, Then Complications Asbestosis begins with X-ray evidence of scarring like that found in Mr. Bailey's lungs. As the disease progresses, the lungs stiffen and breathing becomes difficult. The heart has to work harder and can become enlarged. Ulti mately, death may be caused by heart attack or suffocation. The mineral can also cause lung cancer--In fact ashp-gtn* mu r.-nisc panop.r just about any- place^urTKe body if particTes~STe-~hniehow in gested. The ability of the sharp, tiny particles to penetrate the lung once breathed in has pro duced a high incidence of cancer in the meVibrane surrounding the lurjg, a disease caliid mesothelioma. In the general populace, it causes one in 10,000 deaths. Of 632 asbestis workers being studied by Dr. Selikoff, ; Jied of It so fax. Mobil refinery, where Mri^-Bailey works, lTK5nftrt-hi'Th-heaf faatoricirTirthe oil and chemical industries, uses asbestos for insula- j tion. Mr. Bailey works with insulation workers | inside the furnaces, ripping out soft brick. "There's asbestos and brick dust and a lot of sulphur, too," he says. "We complained about the dust and dirt. Nothing is done to keep it down. The fans make it worse, and you can't wet it because of the heat in the bricks. The company bought new respirators, but under the conditions they clog in 15 minutes." In the asbestos cutting rooms, he adds, there aren't any vacuum attachments on the power saws. And when the insulation workers saw asbestos sheets outside the room, or mix cement in a wheelbarrow, "anybody cam get the dust." Company Disagrees Mobil disagrees with the description of working conditions. In response to a query, the company issued this statement: "Wc have no problems at the Paulsboro refinery concerning the use of materials containing asbestos. We use very little of such material, and what we do use is used under strictly controlled condi tions. Recently the Occupational Safety and Health Administration carried out an extensive / and thorough inspection of the entire Paulsboro refinery. No violations were found in the plant's handling of asbestos materials." Mr. Bailey's union, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers is protesting that inspection. Steven Wodka, a union health and safety spe cialist, says little attention was paid to health violations. And he complains that after a week of accompanying the inspectors, the comply* inexplicably "had me kicked out of the -ivjfnt." Mobil declines comment on Mr. 'Wodka's charge. ^ Oil refineries are by no nieariW the only places where asbestos turns up. The \ersatile substance is a fireproof binder and insulator in' thousands of products, including such things as Please Turn to Page 16, Column J, .JuufiO' -*. 5^ . f.riious Particles: Tiny Asbestos Fibers Pose a Health Threat Continued From Page One plastics, shingles, paper and pipes. In most oi these, the asbestos is harmless to users. But, depending on how it's added to the products, asbestos can pose a threat to workers in the factories where the products are made. Until six months ago, for instance, asbestos was being used as an antileak ingredient in Prestone antifreeze, made by Union Carbide Corp. At a Carteret, N.J., plant, run for Union Carbide by General American Transportation, the asbestos would arrive in paper sacks. Workers would cut the bags open with knives and feed the powdery white asbestos into tanks of antifreeze says James Irving, a fire and safety engineer who has worked in the plant for 22 years. "They'd wear face masks, but no protective clothing," Mr. Irving says, "and the blowers m the room where they worked would send the dust out to where others were working. Then they'd pile up the bags outside the building and a crew would pick them up and throw them onto the truck, raising a big cioud of .dust." Asbestos was removed from the Prestone formula late last year. Mr. Irving says the change took place alter the Oil, Chemical and Atomic workers made an issue of it. Union Carbide denies that. The decision, says Herbert J. Hannigan, the company's technical manager of auto products,.3'.-ns based on marketing consideratiops'and "had nolfrine^ to^-do whip healtjjr sbestos also can pose hazards to the ultlate consumers of certain products. Bits of asestos used in filters for beverage making have been found in wine and beer, for instance, and could be dangerous if swallowed. The use of such filters in beverage making seems to have been curtailed, but knowledge of the hazard ap> pears to have had little effect elsewhere^even medical circles. Asbestos, says a soon-to-bepdbjished study, is being used in some hospi tals a a filter for intravenously fed liquids, giving tfca-partirlas an--entree into the blood stream. The use of asbestos in fireproof textiles is common. Once in a while, asbestos fiber even finds its way into ordinary fabrics. Dr. William Nicholson, an associate of Dr. Selikoff at Mount Sinai, has a girl's charcoal-colored winter coat with red trim hanging in one of his laborato ries. It's one of more than 200,000 imported coats made with 8% asbestos fiber sold two years ago. Some of them are presumably still Ibeing worn. " Give that coat a shake," says Dr. Nicholson " and you get dust levels as high as in an asbestos factory.'' Asbestos workers in the construction indus try are perhaps the most sensitive of ail work ers to the asbestos hazard. It was the construc tion industry, which uses two-thirds of all as bestos products, that was the target of the first wave of antiasbestos publicity more than four years ago. At least four cities--New York, Bos- Chicago and Philadelphia--have banned ''aving of asbestos fireproofing material -- Substitute, materials are being deigh there's some question being . their safety, too. Afraid of a Checkup Among construction workers outside the as bestos trades--virtually all of whom are ex posed to asbestos whether they work with it di rectly or not--concern remains relatively low. Jacob Novak, business manager of the Asbes tos Workers Union local in New York, says he has tried without success, for instance, to in duce a group of plasterers to have checkups. "Some of these people don't want to face a free X ray because they're afraid of what they might hear," says Mr. Novak, a 43-year vet eran of the asbestos trades, who had a nonmalignant tumor removed from a lung last winter. Anxiety in the demolition industry also seems minimal. "We don't have a dust prob lem in demolition," says Leonard Kapy, vice president of Wrecking Corp. of America, one of the largest demolition companies in the coun try. "Some people think you can take down a building without dust," he says with a laugh. As for asbestos, Mr. Kapy isn't worried: "I know fellas who have laid asbestos pipe for years, and there's nothing wrong with them." When'working in closed quarters, he says, his men use drop cloths and fans, but they don't wear respirators because "they're too hot and they don't work." Nevertheless, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is preparing regulations ex pected to be announced this summer that would attempt to impose controls on air pollu tion `from demolition operations. These could include requirements for wetting down the work areas or the removal of all asbestos be fore a building is toppled. The technical prob lem of measuring dust levels, however, " could toss out the. demolition regulation entirely," says Jam es' Krowder, an engineer with the EPA's hazardous pollutants branch. Setting a standard for asbestos concentra tions at work sites has been similarly difficult for the fledgling Occupation Safety and Health Administration, a year-old Department of Labor unit. The reason: Nobocly--Jaipws how much asbe^tes is oungcfnri-Xhe asbesToS~4R4, dustry, leu by Johns-Manville Corpr; the larg est ityme field, has fought for a standard allow- ing.iive asbestos fibers per cubic centimeter of aly in the factories. But the doctors at Mount Sihai and elsewhere argue that the only true safe^lcxhl_aLasbestos pollution would _ A Four-Year Delay The government's decision yesterday was to impose a five-fiber average, with a maximum concentration in the work area of 10 fibers per cubic centimenter at any time. In 1976, the new regulations call for a more stringent two-fiber limit, with the four-year delay intended to give the industry a chance to control the problem. The industry says even a two-fiber limit could hurt it economically. J. B. Jobe, Johns- Manville's executive vice president, said at hearings in March that it would be "socially ir responsible" to adopt such stringent regula tions. i,.; __ The company operates the largest asbost factory in the country at Manville, N.J., wher according to a recent Mount Sinai study, 40 of the workers die of asbestos-related cancc Corrective steps being taken already, John Manville maintains, are adequate to deal wi the problem without causing a cutback in l plant's production, the lifeblood oi the Nc Jersev town of 15,000. At least one asbestos fa tory, run by a PPG Industries and CorniGlass Works joint venture in Tyler, Texclosed last February because of "profitalni: and concern over safety," a spokesman so; Actually, the curbing of asbestos contanrir. tion is more an exercise in good housekeepi: than capital expenditure. While the cost stopping pollution at a power plant or smelt might run into the hundreds of millions, t cost of cleaning up an asbestos operation wot be closer to a 10th of that magnitude, accoi ing to doctors, engineers and union officials. Some of the staples of such an operation, ready in use in many plants, are compa; lively inexpensive closed plastic bags for mi ing cement, vacuum attachments on pov, saws, drop cloths, dust-suppressant chemica and battery-powered respirators that blow f: tered air into the user's face to ease discon fort. The new Labor Department standards A indeed, call for many of these work-praettr rules. But while they are unquestionably'needed step toward strict controls. Dr. Seliko says, he also says he remains pessimists "The potential for surveillance is remote," ; says, because of the small, underfinancc staffs of federal and state inspectors. A surve recently completed at Mount Sinai of 9,400 abestos workers around the country, for in stance, showed that in 1970 and 1971 there wa only one dust count taken in asbestos plants fr every 20,000 man-days worked. And while he says he appreciates the asbe: tos industry's expressed interest in solving the problem, Dr. Selikoff is hard-pressed to ex plain the continuing ers andnianaRovs. "This isn't just anotlKrN sjareTMie says. "Some people want to see the/ todies in the street before they become con cerned. Unfortunately, in this case the bodies/ are in the street."