Document Rp8EQLNwMKNjqDNybxg7worz8

January 4, 1979 THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY BENNETT BUILDING 2030 DOW CENTER MIDLAND. MICHIGAN 4o6L0 R&S 038484 Robert Brandt, M.D. Equitable Environmental Health 600 Executive Bldg. Suite 308 Rockville, Maryland 20852 Dear Dr. Brandt: Because of a very serious illness and the prolonged absence of the MCA Project Coordinator on vinyl chloride research, as well as the Holidays, there has not been opportunity to respond to the letters Dr. Joseph T. Wagoner of OSHA sent you November 1 and December 7, 1978. I had talked earlier to Dr. Wagoner about this correspondence, since he had commented to Dr. M. N. Johnson about the problem. As I read Dr. Wagoner's November 1 .letter there are four requests in the last, para graph. Concerning the first, if you can conveniently supply the values he requests for observed and expected please do so. However, this project is closed financially and no MCA funds are available to supply this or the subsequent requests. Second, concerning the expected and observed brain cancers as related to duration and intensity, if these are conveniently available they also can be provided. I don't know whether Equitable compiled these data in tabular form. Third, as I recall at least one company had Equitable conduct a separate " analysis of the data from their employees and submitted the data to one of the federal agencies. The requests in the December 7, 1978 letter are not as clear. Dr. Wagoner should supply a detailed protocol for his intended project. This will permit an evaluation of appropriateness of the intended procedures and calculations and of the type of information he requests. If you cannot supply the data requested in the November 1 letter from your existing records, I'd recommend that Dr. Wagoner supply a protocol before you expend any effort recalculating the data. It would be a waste of time to recalculate the data until it is established how it is to be used. 2 The January, 1978 report has not been prepared for submission in a refereed scientific journal and this, of course, was the sponsors intention from the beginning of the project. With the change-over in Equitable staff this may be difficult, but publication should be pursued. An appropriate, refereed journal needs to be selected; the article should not be published as proceedings of a meeting since such articles are not reviewed and often permit publication of unsubstantiated opinions of the authors. Sincerely yours, T. R. Torkelson, Sc. D. Chairman MCA Technical Panel on Vinyl Chloride Research cc: J. T. Seawell, MCA Vinyl Chloride Project Coordinator J. K. Wagoner, Sc. D. bcc: VCM Research Coordinators Dow bcc: P. J. Gehring, DVM, PhD. 1/R. R.' Cook, MD bh / R&S 038485