Document RNM0rE2Nkq2VKny8zQ9NGELB

Commentary/Social Issues Moving toward c ntrol of toxic ch mlcals RECEIVED^ MAY 15 1974 R. N. WHEEIFP. JR. After three decades of unprecedented and virtually unregu into osha standards, but mostly due to the agency's lack of lated proliferation of new chemical products, American in information on the thousands of chemicals flooding Into the dustry now confronts a frightening fact and a formidable workplace. With a budget of $25.5-million and a staff of 611, question. The fact: Long-term exposure to an unknown number of chemicals can produce irreparable damage to the organs of employees who work with them--and chemicals are used in every nook and cranny of U. S. industry, not just the 170-billion, 1-million-worker chemical industry. The multifaceted question: How can the dangerous chemicals be identified from among the 10,000 chemicals now in produc tion and the eight new chemicals considered for production each week? And what will it all cost? Some political answers are already taking shape. Tempo rarily stalled behind emergency energy legislation, a Toxic Substances Control bill that would require company testing NIOSH must start from scratch in analyzing each. "We have this Toxic Substances List of 16,000 chemicals, which will double by next year at the present rate of chem ical development," says NIOSH Deputy Director Edward J. Baier. "But when it comes to knowing just how dangerous each chemical is--let alone how carcinogenic-we just don't have the data. If these products were tested prior to their introduction at the worksite, we might not be surprised by any more vinyl chloride incidents." The Toxic Substances Control bill would provide for just such preproduction testing under rules that could have mild-to-massive impact on the chemical industry. While < of new chemicals under Environmental Protection Agency rules awaits action by a Senate-House conference com mittee. Backed by labor, Representative David Obey (D- both the House and Senate versions direct the epa to spec ify companies' testing methods and to forbid production of new and existing chemicals found to be dangerous, they Wis.) plans to press a House Appropriations subcommittee for more money, both for the National Institute for Occupa tional Safety & Health (niosh) and for the National Insti tute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), to be used differ sharply on two crucial points: e The House bill would require testing of only those new chemicals listed as potentially dangerous, with results to be reported to the epa 90 days before production. The Senate specifically for research in petrochemical health hazards. Whatever the immediate fate of both measures, recalcula tion of the acceptable trade-off between worker health and version would require, additionally, that companies notify the epa of all new chemicals considered for production so that it could order testing of suspect chemicals not on the industry growth seems clearly in the cards. The likely result list.' EPA says it cannot predict what industry will develop will be higher costs and slower growth. Long recognized as a grave risk by occupational health experts, the problem of "chemical health collapse'' moved tomorrow and put it on a list today. Industry objects to an approach that-says John A. Georges, director of environ mental affairs for E. I. du Pont de Nemours & (^.-"as abruptly from the scientific journals to the daily news papers with the discovery of seven deaths from angiosar coma, a rare liver cancer, among long-time workers on the sumes every product is dangerous until proven otherwise." The House version would enable the epa to ban produc tion of a chemical only if health hazards could not be cor vinyl chloride operations of three chemical companies, and rected under other federal legislation, such as the Water the diagnosis of noncancerous liver damage in hundreds of Pollution Control Act The Senate version would leave the workers exposed to the chemical The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) hastily issued a temporary exposure standard of 50 parts per million (ppm) for the choice of weapons to the EPA on the ground that different laws work better for different conditions-for instance, that banning a product may be wiser than trying to dean up its 700,000 workers exposed to vinyl chloride, with a permanent zero standard due to be proposed this week. The link be tween vinyl chloride and liver damage thus took its place with the links be tween benzene and leukemia, cadmium toxic sewage, if substitute products are available and clean up methods are uncertain. Industry argues that this provi sion puts too much power into the hands of the epa administrator. and nerve disorders, and a growing list of other chemical occupational *--< Testing costa run high An Information gap - Chemical companies say that their testing costs would rise moderately un Theoretically, Congress dealt with der the House bill, but so astronom ically under the Senate bill that esti this problem back in 1971, whan it created OSHA. Among other tasks, osha mates fail them. Union Carbide Corp.'s chemical and plastics group spent was charged with issuing freshly re $900,000 on testing during fiscal 1973 searched health standards to replace (on sales of $l.S7-billion and pretax outdated consensus standards. A 600- profits of fiZU-million) and is spending ppm vinyl chloride exposure level, for $l.l-million this year. It projects a test example, was still in effect long after ing cost of $lJS-million for 1976, "given most companies had set their own lev a reasonable bill," says Thomas W. els at 200 ppm and Dow Chemical Co. Cartnody, vice-president of the chem had brought down its standard to 10- ical and plastics group. Dow, which to-50 ppm. But nothing much actually spends $8-million annually for testing changed. Only 16 of 660 projected osha (on U. S. sales of $1.7-billion and post health standards were issued in three tax profits of $216.5-million), expects year*. This was due partly to cautious leadership and cumbersome methods of Or. Frederick da Serres: "l feel that converting NIOSH criteria documents 1974 may be me year everything explodes." "only a modest additional cost" under the House bin, says Chester E. 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Crab the Bull by the horns. fritiM IM IN lafcffMtlM BM4 tmhriatim, imMh, ll. nr. inn T* I1UHMW-call cower uer nm- gespondento will receive < HU copy of th* NfC review. 05- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - L? I H 114 euMMVWet: Mw 11.1SM C mm ntary/Social issues Continued manager of the public issues office. But both decline to guess future testing coets under the Senate bill. For their part, epa officials poohpooh talk of sky-high costs. Many chemicals would require no testing at all under the Senate bill, says EPA leg islative director Gary Baise. Moat oth ers would require only the standard 30day toxicity protocol, which measures general effects on two species of ani mals, he says. But tests for suspected carcinogens are something else again, and these are the tests that industry fears the epa may demand for many chemicals. Lifetime animal tests take two years and cost up to 3300,000 per chemical, according to the National Cancer Institute. Nobody yet has oome up with a quick, cheap, reliable substi tute. The likeliest candidate, in some views, is mutagenesis testing-measur ing the ability to change cells rather than the specific ability to cause cancer (one type of unnatural cell change). Conceivably this could save millions of dollars by weeding out chemicals that might otherwise go the two-year, $300,000 route. Dow and Pfizer, Inc., are studying the technique, and Dr. Frederick de Serres of the niehs, a leading authority in the field, predicts good tests for chemicals within a year. Ait even tougher MU? But passage of the Toxic Substances Control bill may not wait for the devel opment of quicker, cheaper testa. On the other hand, Congressional failure to paaa the bill this session, either be cause time runs out or the conferees re main deadlocked, may produce a bill even lees attractive to industry. Senate majority conferees indicate that, rather than compromise further, they will let the current bill die and start again in the next Congiess-a postWatergate Congress likely to be friendlier to a tough bill than the present seeeion. The message seems to be that industry most expect a fairly expensive solution to the problem of identifying potential vinyl chlorides, if not this year, then next-end that this, in turn, means that it will be producing fewer products. "The bill will have a hidden cost in new products that will never be devel oped and new uses for old products that will never be explored," says George Hanks, environmental affaire manager for Union Carbide. "Small companies especially will think twice before un dertaking anything that may require extensive testing. They can't afford it." Environmentalists such as Barry Commoner argue that this is good, that the ever-accelerating flood of the past 30 years should be slowed while indus try catches up on its health homework for those chemicals already developed and society decides how many more it can absorb. Taking another tack, labor argues for a tough bill aa a means of protecting worker health with minimal economic disruption. Spotting dangers through preproduction testing makes more sense than waiting till after wards, when jobs and investments are at stake, says Sheldon Samuels, direc tor of health, safety, and environmen tal affairs for the AFL-Cio's Industrial Union Dept Potential time bombs Extensive testing may increase coets to consumers as well as producers, la bor spokesmen concede freely. "Safety and health coats are part of the cost of doing business," says iud SecretaryTreasurer Jacob dayman. "In some cases they will be passed on to the consumer." Although chemical companies take no such placid view of the increased cost of doing business under a Toxic Substances Control bill, their present prospect* suggest considerable ability to pay more for health research with out endangering their own economic health. "Resource shortages guarantee an era of incredible growth for chem icals," says Union Carbide's Carmody. "Look at detergents. There's just no way back to soaps based on fats. We need the fat for food now. The same is true for most natural resources." As a result, Carmody says, "I can't imagine a really important product being priced out of the market" Carmody'* premise may be tested sooner rather than later. Another vinyl chloride incident would almost cer tainly propel a tough Toxic Subatancea Control bill out of committee and onto the statute books, and occupational health experts rank tha likelihood of such an incident as somewhere be tween possible and probable. Since chemically caused diseases often have latency periods of 10 to 20 yean and many chemicala went into production 10 to 20 yean ago, tima bombs may be ticking away on countless production lines. *1 feel," ssys the niehs' Dr. de Serrss, "that 1974 may bt the year ev erything explodes." socim. bslvs ucc 006863