Document RjXdZyan5d4Gxxb0yj8oY6aGE

Health Hazards Vinyl-Chloride Risks Were Known by Many Before First Deaths Hindsight Shows Weakness In Firms' Systems Aimed At Protecting Workers The Tip of a Large Iceberg By Barry Kramer stuff fitporttr aI The Wall Srwer jocknal A few weeks before Christmas In 1943, Earl Parks, then 26 years old. signed on as a helper-trainee at the large B. F. Goodrich Co. plastics factory in Louisville, Ky. The plant had been making polyvinyl-chloride plastic from vinyl-chloride gas since before the war, using a process developed by Good-1 rich in 1937. It was a growing industry that Mr. Parks joined. Polyvinyl chloride--dubbed PVC for short-had found special, but limited, appli cations In the war, years, especially as a fireproof coating for electric wiring in fighter planes and ships. But in the late 1940e, so-called vinyl consumer products, made from PVC, began coming Into vogue; and by the time the 1950s were under way polyvinyl-chloride products such as contain ers, phonograph records and curtains were staples in American households. The basic Goodrich process, still in use today, pipes vinyl-chloride gaa into large re This is the first of (too stories comcerniug implications of the discovery that vinyl chloride can cause cancer. actor vessels; there, the gas is agitated to gether with a liquid and catalysts. The pro cess causes polymerisation, a Unking to gether of the molecules of the gaa (a mon omer) into the long chains that-give PVC (a polymer) Its strength and other desired characteristics. The First Years In his first, years with Goodrich, It was Earl Parks's job to crawl inside the reactors after each batch of PVC was drained off and to chip away that portion of the polymer that had congealed. During the hour-Jong task, repeated several times in the course of an eight-hour shift, Mr. Parks and other workers who performed the same function would unavoidably inhale the heavy, sweetsmelling fumes of vinyl-chloride gas that had escaped polymerization. As the 1950s went by and the I960* began, that he had worked with Goodrich, the PVC industry flourished as thousands of new uses were discovered for the polymer. On March 3, 1973, at the age of 50, Earl Parks died of angiosarcoma of the liver, a type of cancer that is Invariably fatal. His death attracted scant public attention at the Ume, but today the significance of Mr. Parks's Hlness is unquestionable and shat tering In Its Implications. For Earl Parks came to be one more statistic in turning a hypothesis Into a reality: Vinyl chloride can cause cancer. Deadly Statistics The link between angiosarcoma and vinyl chloride is further buttressed by other deadly statistics. Seven of Mr. Parks's fel low workers at the Goodrich plant also con tracted the disease, and five have died. In all, there have been 16 documented angio sarcoma cases in the U.8. in recent years, all of them linked to vinyl chloride. In addi tion, 10 other cases have been reported in Europe. While the total number of cases is small, the industry has been shaken to Its roots. The disease now is known to work insidi ously, slowly, during decades of exposure, the implications being that the cases thus far are quite likely only the Up of an ice berg. Nine companies, with 14 plants and 940 employes, currently produce vinyl chlor ide monomer from ethylene, a petrochemi cal. The monomer, In turn, la used by 21 companies operating 36 major plants and employing 5,000 workers, to make more than five billion pounds of PVC annually. (World-wide production is some 13 billion pounds annually.) . Even the five billion pounds of PVC an nually produced in this country isn't enough to meet the domestic demand for the plastic Into which PVC is formed. From 3,000 to 4, 000 processors, employing an estimated 700,000 workers, fabricate the plastic into a wide variety of products ranging from vinyl floor tiles to shower curtains. According to a study done for the Society of the Plastics In dustry by Arthur D. Little Inc., as many as 2,2 million jobs depend onpolyvtnyl-chloride plastic. If PVC were banned, the study says, the annual loss to industry in sales and producUon would be some 165 billion to 190 bil lion. (The Manufacturing Chemists Associa tion estimates the wholesale annual value of all PVC products is $3 billion.) Emergency Decree At the moment, no one believes the In'dustry will suddenly come to a screeching halt. However, after the first human cases of vinyl chloride-induced angiosarcoma were disclosed, the Labor Department's Oc cupational Safety and Health Administra tion imposed a temporary emergency stan dard for PVC factories;' thenceforth, OSHA decreed, the permissible level of vinyl chlor ide in the air of such factories would be 50 parts per million. That level was far below the Industry standard, in effect for years, of 500 parts per million. OSKA'a emergency decree was made j last May. Since then, animal research found that tumors develop at 50 parts per million. Yesterday, OSHA issued a new permanent standard requiring employers after Jan. 1. 1975, to reduce exposure to one part per mil lion in factory air, averaged over eight hours, and five parts per million averaged over any period no longer than 15 minutes. (See story on page 10.) While considerably more stringent than the emergency decree, the new permanent standard--particularly with its five-parts-per-million provision and its allowance of averaging--nevertheless falls short of the "no detectable" limit adyo- Ffaose Turn to Page 10. Column l BFG27128 T0 0 6 frZ.es AL, Health Hazards: Many Knew Risks the livers of 25% of the workers in a small PVC plant. Then. In the late 1950s, research toxocolo- Tower ruction. Of Vinyl Chloride Before Deaths gists at Dow Chemical Co. showed that ani mals exposed to as few as 100 parts per mil lion of vinyl chloride (or 100 molecules of vinyl chloride in every one million mole re. k id i! V. St vail) nue, Continued From First Page cated by unions, many medical experts and such groups as the National Institute for Oc cupational Safety and Health, and the American Chemical Society. This no-detect able limit would have constant, not average, adherence to one-part-per-mllllon levels. Therefore, It seems certain that the argu ment won't abate. The analysis showed that the liver had been cules of air) developed slight liver damage. damaged by exposure to "chemicals." Ckn-, Based on its research, Dow began a pro cer wasn't mentioned. gram in the 1960s to reduce the level of (According to testimony at OSHA's hear vinyl chloride monomer In the air of Its ings on vinyl chloride, held last June and. plants to below 50 parts per million. July, Mr. Parks received a total of almost Dow published Its results in 1961. But the 56,000 in workman's compensation from rest of the Industry chose to rely on a Yale Goodrich before he died. put only / after University study that recommended 500 'Goodrich Protested that, his. .Illnesscouldn't parts per million as a safe level. This same have resulted from exposure to the cherni/ level had been recommended by the Manu As the controversy continues, It is reveal ing to examine how the link between vinyl cal.) ; i It was an alert Louisville doctor who first facturing Chemists Association since 1954, was affirmed in 1962 by the American Con chloride and cancer was established. If nothing else, such ah examination points out the grave weaknesses of the present system made the connection between angiosarcoma, ference of Governmental Industrial Hygien and vinyl chloride. Dr. John L. Creech, who ists and was given the force of law by OSKA for years has treated workers sent to-him in 1971. However, evidence at the OSHA --or lack thereof--of protecting, workers and others from industrial hazards. by Goodrich on a fee-per-patient baslB, had followed Earl Parks's case for some- time, hearings indicates that this level was regu larly exceeded until this year in many The judgment Is made in hindsight, but even though he wasn't treating Mr. Parks. plants. (The hygienists' group didn't recom the history of vinyl chloride shows that evi dence of Its toxicity was often Ignored.' Dr. Creech says he had been concerned about an abnormally high number of Good mend lowering the level to 200 parts per million until 1972, four years after Dow con What's more, the chemical companies rich workers who had liver disease. Whien cluded from further tests that repeated ex knew, but kept secret for at least six months, the fact that, Italian researchers he heard that Mr. Parks had died, he re calls, he asked to see the autopsy report, , posure by workers to vinyl-chloride mon omer at an average of 300 parts per million had shown that rats develop tumors, includ It was In August 1973 that Dr. Creech or above'for a working lifetime could cause ing angiosarcoma,- wfieh, exposed to low levels bf vinyl chloride monomer. European learned that Mr. Parks had died the pre vious March of angiosarcoma of the liver. changes in the liver.) Another Disease companies^ which paid for. the animal re search, knew of these research'findings for more than a year before^the first human cases were reported but didn't reduce the exposure of their workers U> vinyl chloride. But Dr. Irving J/Selikoff, an .expert on environmental, carcinogens, or cancer-caus ing agents,'claims^th.atblame shouldn't be placed'at industry'.^door.alone. "We're all a bit' respon^ble/' he says. "None of us did our homeworkL*-Cuip&blllty, he says, should be shared 'by' scientists, government agen cies and labor unions; The doctor says he then realized that some* During the 1960s, there were reports of a thing was seriously wrong, since another disease called acroosteolysis among vinyl- Goodrich PVC worker-, a private patient of, chloride workers. The disease consists of Dr. Creech, had succumbed to the same skin lesions and changes in the blood ves type of cancer In 1971. Dr. Creech says he sels, leading to degeneration of the bones at knew that Uver angiosarcoma U exceedingly the tips of the fingers and toes in those ex rare and that two cases among such a small posed to high levels of the monomer. (Emis plant population was abnormal. (In fact,' sions of vinyl chloride are generally lower medical men estimate that fewer than 30 at plants where the monomer, or gas, is cases occur each year In the U.S., striking made, since the process is less complex, only one In 900,000 persons.) and there Is less change for leaks than at Dr. Creech met with Goodrich's occupa the polymerization plants; none of the re tional health director,-Dr. Maurice N. John- ported angiosarcoma cases in this country The case of Earl Parks Is Illustrative. son, who subsequently decided to ask Taber* has occurred among workers making vinyl- Mr. Parks first came to the attention of shaw-Cooper Associates Inc., a Berkeley, chloride monomer, and only one of the 10 Goodrich medical people In 1964, when the Calif., epidemiological-studies concern, to deaths In Europe was in a monomer plant.) company, concerned about the known Uver do a survey of Goodrich death records. But In early 1967, the Manufacturing Chem toxicity-of ethylene dichloride (a chemical the study was hardly needed; on Dec. 19, a ists Association arranged with the Univer from which vinyl chloride is model, tested third PVC worker at the LoulsvlUe plant sity of Michigan to study acroosteolysis the Uver function of workers in the Louis died at the age of 58; he had been at the among vinyl-chloride workers, particularly ville plant. plant for 28 years. those who cleaned the reactor vessels and < City. Mr. .Parka's readings were abnormal. Public Announcement others who were exposed to large concentra Nevertheless,, he contlnued.-to work.'at the On Jan. 22 of this year, Goodrich officials tions of vinyl chloride In the air. The Michi Cotp., same job. In October 1964* however, he was met In Washington with officials of the Na gan scientists reported in 1970 that although on. hospitalized .with what/was. Initially. diag tional Institute for Occupational Safety and they couldn't pinpoint vinyl chloride as the States ich can Y. 452. nosed as a bleeding ulcer; Doctors .treated Health and Informed them of the three an cause of the disease, worker exposure to the the "ulcer" without surgery, and Mr. parks giosarcoma deaths. The following day, Ken monomer should be cut to 50 parts per mil was released. tucky occupational-health officials also were lion or below. He was.readmitted to the hospital the fol informed and Goodrich made Its first public Other than Dow, which had already Insti lowing May, and the decision was made to announcement. tuted reductions in air level of the mon operate. But when the operation was begun, Almost since Its first commercial intro omer, the rest of the Industry in the U S. Ig surgeons, instead of finding.an ulcer, found duction, there have been reports that vinyl nored the recommendation. Nor was there Instead, that Mr, Parks's. problem resulted chloride is toxic above certain levels', In any significant reaction to findings by Euro from severe Uver damage,: which had deed, during World War II, vinyl chioride pean Industry that animals developed ad caused blood to back up in the portal vein was rejected as a surgical anesthetic^be verse effects from vinyl chloride. This was leading Into the liver. The surgeons cor cause animals developed heart Irritation at least partly because the Europeans down rected the vein problem with a shunt and when exposed to it. In 1949, .Russian scien graded the Importance of some of their find: took a sample of liver tissue for analysis. tists reported "hepatitis-like changes" in ings. For example. Prof. Pier Luigi Viola, a medical director employed in Italy by Sol* vay it Qe., the Belgian chemicals company, Sharp Drop in Vinyl Chloride Exposure found bone changes in rats exposed to air levels of 30,000 parts per million of vinyl chloride: even more important, he found Is Ordered by Labor Agency for Workers that vinyl chloride at that level caused ma lignant tumors In the ear canals, lungs and ?y Wall Siwi JOl'tXAL tuft WASHINGTON--The Labor Department ordered a sharp reduction in workers' expo sure to vinvl chloride, a widely used Indus- . -xvA date wasn't set in the ruling for Im proving plant engineering and^ practices, to Prof. Viola reported his findings before an international cancer congress in Houston the point where respirators won't be needed. What's more, until January 1976 workers In 1970. It was the first reported link be tween cancer and vinyl chloride. But the 006VL II BFG27129 operate. But when the operation was begun, Almost Blnce Its urn uuhiiii>v.<u .... surgeons. Instead of finding an ulcer, found duction, there have been reports that vinyl nored the recommendation. Nor was mere Instead that Mr. Parks'* problem resulted chloride is toxic above certain levels. In any significant reaction to findings by Euro om Bevere liver damage, which had deed, during World War II, vinyl chloride pean industry that animals developed ad .used blood to back up tn the portal vein was rejected as a surgical anesthetic be verse effects from vinyl chloride. This was leading Into the liver. The surgeons cor cause animals developed heart irritation at least partly because the Europeans down rected the vein problem with a shunt and when exposed to It. In 1949, Russian scien graded the Importance of some of their find1 took a sample of liver tissue for analysis. tists reported "hepatitis-like changes" in ings. For example, Prof. Pier Luigi Viola, a medical director employed in Italy by Sol- vay & Cie., the Belgian chemicals company, Sharp Drop in Vinyl Chloride Exposure found bone changes In rats exposed to air levels of 30,000 parts per million of vinyl chloride: even more important, he found Is Ordered by Labor Agency for Workers that vinyl chloride at that level caused ma lignant tumors In the ear canals, lungs and bones of rats. Bn a Wall. Stuvt JOUtXAl Staff Xiforttr WASHINGTON--The Labor Department ordered a sharp reduction tn workers' expo sure to vinyl chloride, a widely used indus trial gas that has been linked to Liver, can cer. The ruling, which comes after nine months of controversy, brought a iawsuit from the plastics industry, which contends the standard can't be met, and criticism from organised labor,. which contends the rule contains too many loopholes.: Vinyl chloride is a basic ingredient lir making many everyday plastic products. The new standard, issued by the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, requires that, start ing Jan. 1, vinyl chloride levels in the air A date wasn't set in the ruling for im proving plant engineering andt practices to the point where respirators won't be needed. What's more, until January 1976 workers may refuse to wear the respirators when ex posures don't exceed 25 parts per million, even If they exceed the one part per million over eight hours specified In the regUlptibtw Despite thi3 attempt comprpfrJSef however, the try.'and. sorae' Sproocdiuectye_-rosfLrstaBuee^<JrpTiiisacitsoJndus^ pkrtment to overturn the ruling only mo ments after It was Issued yesterday: And Firestone Plastic Co., a unit of Firestone Tire Jc Rubber Co., said It will ask a court to stay enforcement of the standard while the suits are being tried. Ralph Harding, president of the Industry Prof. Viola reported his findings before an international cancer congress In Houston in 1970. It was the first reported link be tween cancer and vinyl chloride. But the professor expressed doubt about the purity of the #nyl-chloride gas he had used and stated that the rjit cancer findings, because they^pc'curT^%.at ii'ch high levels of the ^ndriomer, had#p/hUman Implications. , .(Prof. Viola-.subsequentl-y found tumorB 500-parts per million; but this factwasn't-revealed until well after the first human angiosarcoma cases were re vealed. ) The Research Goes On Based on Prof. Viola's early cancer find ings in rats, Montedison S.p.A., the hugeItalian chemicals company, in 1970 asked that workers breathe be held to one part vinyl chloride per million parts of air, aver aged over an eight-hour period. Actual levels may exceed one part per million for short periods, but they must average out to no more than five parts per million for any 15-minute period within the eight-hour time span. group, said the standard is "unrealistic, probably will be impossible for most, if not all, ot the industry to meet and appears to have been developed oh some basis inconsis tent with recorded facts." The Job-safety agency "may believe that it has adopted a compromise position," but the result is un acceptable to the industry, he added. Cesare Maltonl, a respected researcher at the Institute of Oncology In Bologna, -Italy, to do more extensive animal etudes. By Oc tober 1972, Prof. Maltonl says, he had found that 250 parts per million ot` yinyl chloride produced tumors in rats in: three parts of the body: the ear canals, kidpeys and the liver. The liver tumors included angiosar coma. The professor immedlateJy ihformed The standard also calls for regular moni Industry sources also indicated displea his sponsors. ' /-'/ ' toring of plant air. regular medical exams sure at the inclusion of plants making fabri The Europeans, offeredtheir Information, for workers and establishment of "regulated cated products from polyvinyl chloride. The to the Manufacturing Chemists Association areas" where vinyl chloride exposure is Industry, had proposed excluding these in the U.S., but only if .(he Americans guar-, high. It prohibits direct worker contact.with plants, contending they didn't present any anteed confidentiality. With/' great reluc liquefied vinyl chloride and requires posting hazard. tance, the association says, it finally-agreed' of signs warning the chemical is a "cancer- But the department said it decided to In to the secrecy condition Vbe^wise /ofj: the, suspect agent." clude them because polyvinyl choride resin vital importance of learning: of. any Indica Since last April, companies handling and pellets can give off vinyl chloride gas in tions from the European research , \ ./with 97-4740 vinyl chloride have been under an emer small amounts during processing. It said, out the delays which could /have, resulted gency restriction ot 50 parts per million, however. If the plants weren't exposing from duplication of effort/* :.-v . without any Ume period. workers to more than half a part per million On Jan. 30, 1973, a year before the-firs^ . 101002 I The emergency standard was issued of vinyl chloride gas, they needn't under human angiosarcoma cases were ^reported after the discovery, beginning last January, take any control measures. by B, F. Goodrich, the'MCA finally got the of cases of a rare and fatal liver cancer, an In Midland, Mich., Dow Chemical Co. Maltonl data For five month's,'the secrecy giosarcoma, among workers exposed to [said the standards were "unnecessarily restrictions were such, that' government vinyl chloride. Nineteen deaths among such stringent" and unsupported by the data on agencies, PVC workers exposed to'vinyl 'm ias workers in the U.S. and other countries Dow workers that was presented at public chloride and even company doctors were have been attributed to liver cancer caused ^hearings. kept In the dark. Then, in the late spring, by long exposure to the chemical. Organized labor expressed some immedi the Europeans agreed that thp Chemists As Vinyl chloride is a gas that is processed ate reservations of its own. sociation could pass the information on to to form a powdery substance known as poly In Akron, Ohio, Peter Bommarito, presi the U.S. National Institute for Occupational vinyl chloride. Polyvinyl chloride, in resin or pellet form, is then fabricated into a wide variety of finished plastic products. Coverage for Workers dent of the United Rubber Workers union, Safety and Health, the Labor Department which represents many vinyl chloride work' agency that monitors worker safety. On ers, said "it would appear this thing has a July 17,1973, representatives of the associa number of loopholes in it." Mr. Bommarito tion and the agency met. Though only about 6,500 workers are em reserved final judgment until he has seen a There is some dispute as to what tran ployed in plants that make vinyl chloride full text of the regulations, but he was quick spired at the meeting. The Labor Depart and polyvinyl chloride, about 350,000 others, to take issue with the decision to let workers ment agency claims it wasn't given the full who work in facilities that create finished products from the polyvinyl chloride, will decline the use of a respirator until 1976. story; the chemists' association claims that "We can't make a guy put on a respirator, the agency misunderstood the findings. But also be covered by the new ruling. Workers and while he's not wearing one, he may be one thing is certain: The agency, and who handle only finished products, and don't endangering himself." What Is more, he OSHA, made no move to change the stan stsuket It have any chance of contact with "raw" added, "The respirator situation is going to dard of 500 parts per million and didn't do vinyl chloride or polyvinyl chloride, are the be even worse In nonunion plants.'' so until after the human angiosarcoma ught- only ones exempted. The Labor Department initially proposed Union safety experts have been heavily cases were announced. In Europe, by con involved in the rule-making process, and trast, Great Britain had lowered the maxi pack* it Mlitalog /) Or, ch ois and mar*. that exposure be limited to "no detectable level." without any averaging over time. This proposal pleased organized labor and some key researchers in the field of occupa tional health. But the Society of the Plastics Industry, a trade group, and many compa one of their major contentions has been that protection from the gas should be derived primarily from controlling exposure through engineering and work rule changes rather than from respirators, which workers often balk at wearing because they c^.r> be bulky mum level to 200 parts per million following the cases of acroosteolysis in the '60s; and West Germany had set a level of 100 parts per million in 1970, based on Dow's 1961 re sults with animals. According to New Scien tist, the British science journal, "No other nies using the chemicals, denounced it as technologically impossible and warned it would drive the industry out of business. Discretion in Enforcement In selecting as its final standard one part and urn ellable. The department defended its reliance on the use of respirators, sayinj: definite dates couldn't be set for dealing with the problem solely through engineering and work rules section of the U.S. or European industry fol lowed Dow's lead. The reasons for this in ternational confusion are obscure." This all changed quickly, of course, once the first human cases of angiosarcoma were per million over eight hours and five parts because "we are presently unable to deter-` reported by 'Goodrich. Indeed, the swiftness per million over 15 minutes, the department mine when It will be feasible." It added, with which new research haa been carried apparently was trying to reach a compro "We would agree that respirators have out since Jan. 23 is perhaps without prece mise between its original idea and the many drawbacks" but said, in the absence dent In the world of medicine and science. toughest proposal offered by the industry, of -complete engineering control, they are Much of this recent research is con which would have left exposures as high as 10 parts per million in some plants and 25 needed. The official explanation of the cerned with studies of the incidence of dis regula ease of all types among vinyl-chloride work parts per million In others. tions also said that although a deadline ers. Thus far. some studies show that work-' The department sought to smooth further wasn't set for completing engineering and ers .exposed to high levels of vinyl chloride the adjustment for Industry by delaying work-rule changes, a continuing plan, avail show greater than expected incidences not oil dtliv- ifllroduc- phy Filil until next January the drop from th<- pres able for government Inspection, must be only of angiosarcoma but certain other can ent 50 parts per million. Also, it gave its en pursued by each company at a pace agreed cers as well. The ramifications of these find forcement staff discretion to determine how on by safety Inspectors, until respirators are ings for the future of the industry and its the companies must meet the standard.- needed only occasionally. It admitted, how workers remain to be seen. However, for While the goal is to reach the new levels ever, that at different plants this could take the veterari PVC workers, . whatever through "engineering and work practice as long as "several yearB." changes the findings produce wth/be useless controls," such controls must be deemed The unions are expected to study the rul in counteracting the insidious effects, of "feasible/' and companies can deal with ing in depth, and they, too, could file a law working day after day, year after year, in any exposures produced by inadequate con suit if they conclude the final standards are what now is generally viewed as a contami trols by giving workers respirators. inadequate. nated atmosphere. ....... '4374 30V3 need Wr P. O. 7704 your in th< unde RECC ' Mlnl-C I TRY IT FC An outstan lions in a western co The su' requiremei chining ar employees This pt operations Send r O r*"j r- a<N u, CQ