Document Rpj22dkJ61vD03K2dBzpX6vw7

wiWB'iiaaHt .:- ` iliati.l llii.fiiii L. V.l Thatcher c.w.c. PROM; W. e; Neeld, Jr., M.D. Med. Div. Witn For Aopro* <1 For At(tattoo For Inlo*. miuM Note and Note and Forward 1 Return To-F.ie To Soodtr Roqmm For your interest I / CURRENT STUDIES INDICATE THE TLV FOR ASBESTOS IS TOO HIGH Evidence suggesting that the Threshold Limit Value for exposure to asbestos'Containing materials is too high was presented at the Western Industrial Health Conference in San Francisco, September 29-30 by Leroy Balzer, Research Specialist in Industrial Hygien* at the University of California's School of Public Health (Berkeley, Calif.), who reporte on studies of insulation workers in the San Francisco Bay area. Some of his informatio: is summarized below: The midget impinger was used for environmental sampling for dust exposures both'ii the breathing zone and in general air. The membrane filter was used in evaluating the environmental exposure to fibrous materials. Samples were collected using Mil lipore Type AA filters in field monitor eases connected to pe.rsonal air samplers am attached to the workers for periods ranging from 30 minutes to 2 hours. The fibers were counted by clearing a wedge-shaped segment of the filter using a modified tech nique of the U.S. Public Health Service at 430 X magnification, using phase contrast illumination. Although the insulation worker in the Bay area works with asbestos-containing products 45% of the time, his overall time-weighted average exposure to asbestos-containing materials is below the presently recognized TLV of 5 mppcf specified by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. The three work areas in which the dust levels were above the TLV (prefabrication, tearing out, and mixing) account for less than 20% of his total work time, however, the incidence of radiographic changes indicative of asbestosis is over 25% in men with 20 years or more of work. That the present TLV for asbestos is not preventing asbestosis is supported by these observa tions coupled with reports from some asbestos industries which have experienced a de creased incidence in asbestosis following a reduction in dust counts well below the TL' OUP 1110827 DU 054820 Government Bows in $ 100 Million Case Asbestos Suit Burns U. S. Tyler, Texts -- (AP) -- The Federal Government has agreed to pay J5.75 million to settle its share of a muitira- dlioo-dotlar suit filed by 445 asbestos workers who said they were unknow ingly exposed to cancer-causing mate rials. The action, announced yesterday by U.S. District Judge William Stager, settles a UOO million lawsuit filed by the 443 workers. It was the largest personal injury suit ever filed against the Federal Government. Judge Steger said settlement offers from private defendants in the ssuit would bring the total amount paid to the asbestos workers to 520 million. Last December, in a memorandum, attorneys for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare warned that if the asbestos workers won their suit, a precedent would be set which could make the government liable for damages anytime a work place that was inspected by federal of ficials -- or should have been inspect ed -- proved unsafe. A Justice Department spokesman said in Washington last night that the settlement in no way implies that the 20% of Cancer Deaths Tied to Jobs Washington -- (AP) -- Exposure to cancer-causing chemicals in the American workplace may cause et least 20 percent of cancer deaths each year -- or nearly 10,000 fatalities -- with asbestos the Ho. 1 chemical killer, government scientists say. The new estimates are sharply higher than past figures, which placed the cancer toll from occupational ex posure at 1-3 percent, said Joseph A. Califano Jr., secretary of Health, edu cation and welfare. Asbestos may account for 17 per cent of ail cancer deaths annually. Other chemical culprits include arsen ic. benzene and vinyl chloride. The study listed a dozen occupations In which it Mid the workers showed excessive cancer rates that have not been traced to any single chemical. The jobs included coal miners, chem.ists, foundry and textile workers, printing pressmen, rectal miners, coke byproduct workers, cadmium production workers and lead, rubber, wood and leather workers. Scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences said 20 percent was a "conservative" estl- mate of the cancer toll, which could run as high as 3S percent. The National Cancer Institute says 290,000 Americans die from cancer annually. The new V percent mini mum estimate would mean 71000 deaths. The number of aew cancer cases diagnosed each year is 700,000. The scientists based their findings not on new medical research, but on new statistical analyses of the number of workers exposed to cancer-causing chemicals and their risk of developing cancer. The study singles out asbestos, the fire-resistant chemical used in a host of fields from construction to auto brake linings, as the worst offender. HEW began a campaign in April to alert the estimated 3 million to 11 mil lion Americans who have been ex posed to asbestos sjice World War II about its long-term effects. The- HEW study said at least 2.15 million of those workers will die from asbestos-related diseases, or 67,000 a year for the next 30 to 3S years. It blamed asbestos for 17 percent of all cancer cases. The study says 5.S million workers were potentially exposed to arsenic, benzene, vinyl chionde, coal tar pitch and coke oven emissions, which could cause 14 percent of all cancers each year. Some 7.3 million workers potential ly were exposed to four other sub stances, chromium, iron oxide, nickel and petroleum distillates, which could cause 3-18 percent of `-he cancers, the government admits any negligence on the part of federal safety inspectors. The workers sued the government and several private firms on grounds that their negligence resulted in onthe-job exposure to a type of asbestos called amosite, which has been shown to cause lung cancer in humans. The suit was filed in 1974 on behalf of asbestos workers at a Tyler plant which was coowned by PPG Indus tries and Coming Glass Works. The plant was shut down irt 1972. The plant manufactured asbestos pipe insulation, same of which was used in navy vessels. The U.S. govern ment was sued because the workaA argued it bad a responsibility to e9 sure Mfe working conditions at the facility. Although the legal tangle has been unsnarled, the human problems are just beginning. Officials of the Texas Chest Founda tion, in charge of a medical diagnostic program for the plant's former work ers. said the outlook is bleak tor the 1,000 people who worked at the plant at various times. One study said even short exposures to asbestos earned "a significant risk" of asbestosis. gastrointestinal malignancies, lung can cer and mesothelioma -- all forms of cancer or lung disease. study added. Califano told an AFUCIO confer- nice on occupational safety and health about the new estimate and released a five-page draft summary of the study yesterday. HEW scientists are putting the study into final form to submit to the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration by Friday. OSHA is preparing new standards for regulating hundreds of known or suspected cancer-causing agents at workplacm in hopes of accelerating federal action to ban or restrict them. Critics of the plan have said It eouid cost Industry billions of dollars, and some have said the standards are not needed because the incidence bf occu pational cancer was low. DUP 1110907 DU 054901  A,,--nittiSi I1, j^mitaiBiita The Aibeato* Time Bomb Lodged in the lungs of neariv evervone breathing in today's industr.al world are tiny fibers of asbestos which may rep resent one of the most frightening health haz ards yet uncovered. Based on what has been learned from studies of asbestos workers over the last fifty years, the fibers could be the harbingers of a large-scale epidemic of lung cancer and an even more devastating malig nancy known as mesothelioma. Credit for sounding the asbestos alarm in this country goes to Dr. Irving Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York. About eight years ago. several studies carried out in this country. England, and South Africa convinced him that asbestos was not as inert and biologically harmless as originally believed. Since the 1920s. we have known that asbestos workers employed in the industry for long periods of time were dying of asbestosts. a kind of pneumonia associated with a buildup of fibers in the workers' lungs. Although asbestosis is not considered a malig nant disease, the prognosis for asbestos workers began to look even worse in the 1930s. when physi cians in several countries found that asbestos workers had about ten times the lung cancer nsk other workers did. Lung cancer is extremely difficult to treat and is almost invariably fatal if not detected and treated at a very early stage. More bad news was yet to come. Asbestos workers were also dying of mesothelioma, a rare but deadly cancer which affects the lining surrounding the lungs and body cavity. Until it cropped up in asbestos workers, physicians infrequently encountered the disease. Dr. SelikofTs own recent studies of 632 asbestos workers employed for various periods between 1943 and clearly implicate asbestos as a major cause of cancer He found that 89 of the workers died of lung cancer, compared to an expected 12 deaths from the disease in the "normal" population. And in a group of 632. where to case of mesothelioma was expected. 35 died of me disease More significant was the fact that even tncugh many of the workers had been exposed to asoestcs for periods of as little as a few months, they had apparently inhaled the seeds of cancerous conditions mat fiowered twenty to thirty years later. In spite of these ominous statistics, accumulated over a oe.-.od of fifty years, the asbestos problem is only now beginning to be taken seriously. "I can't explain that quiet period." Dr. Selikoff says. "The industry grew fivefold, but nothtne was done to warn or protect the workers. No asbestos dust counts or other precauuons were taken in asbestos plants. Unfortunately, now that we are finally aware of the dangers involved, we find that instead of a small problem, we have a huge problem." What makes the asbestos problem so huge is that nearly everyone's body has been invaded by fibers from an industry which mines 3 to 4 million tons of asbestos every year. Asbestos is used in insulation for walls anfl furnaces, in fireproofing sprays for large skyscrapers, in floor and ceiling tiles, m'automobtle brake linings, in cement piping, for filtering beer and wim. and m scwes of other applications. The possibility that asbestos is contaminating people who never worked in the industry comes from studies in South Africa which dearly show that people who live near asbestos plants, or dose rela tives of employees who work there, have developed lung abnormalities arid in some cases cancer. The drde of contamination may be widening still further. Asbestos fibers have been found in the air and water of many large cities and almost universally in the lungs of their inhabitants. Dr. Selikoff is concerned that even more asbestos will be spewed into the air we breathe as old buildings containing an estimated 25 million pounds of the mineral fibers are torn down or subjected to routine maintenance. Also, he says, another million workers in some 300.000 brake maintenance garages through out the United States are exposed to daily doses of asbestos. After six years of litigation. Reserve Mining in Minnesota has been forced to stop dumping asbestos-containing tailing from its tacomte iron ore mines into Lake Superior, as it has been doing at a , 67,000-ton-a-day dip since 1955. Because of the company's contamination of 2000 square miles of Lake Superior with asbestos. Dr. William Nicholson. Dr. SelikofTs colleague at Mount Sinai, estimates that "the fibers ingested by persons in the Duluth area over a period of 15 to 17 years can be as many as workers inhale in their occupational experience." To counter the rising levels of asbestos in the air boih inside and outside asbestos plants, the EP-*i ar.d other federal agencies luve established new stan dards that limit asbestos uoncentrations :o two fibers per cubic centimeter of air. However. Dr Selikoff is disturbed that in spite of the large-scaie contamina tion of Lake Superior, similar standards for water are being delayed by a debate now under wav as to whether asbestos is as harmful when taker, in wits water as it is when inhaled into the lungs. DW M 1091, DU 054905 Further, he says that even with the new federal recommendations for "dust counts" and other protective measures. "virtually no inspecuons are carried out in asbestos working areas by the agencies who should be routinely doing those inspections.'* Hit by t number of potentially costly lawsuits which hold that Johns-Manville Corporation, a major producer of asbestos products, failed to protect its employees and warn them about the hazards of asbestos, that company has initiated many stringent procedures which Selikoff says are the best in the business, they include ventilation hoods snd air Alters for catching asbestos Abers. protective masks and clothing, and other safety measures. The company also labels its asbestos products with warninp to the consumer of the potential hazard involved. Confident that the company can handle the asbestos problem. Johns-Manville has no pirns to cut back production. In fact spurred by an increasing demand for their products, they spent S7J million last year to expand mining and milling facilities in .Asbestos. Quebec. But the asbestos time bomb has a long fuse, and the company's problems may not be over. As Roy Steiafunh. head of the Asbestos Work ers snd Insulators health hazard program, puts it: "We expect to see many more claim*. because more people arc dying of asbestos disease. We're just now starting to hear of eancer snd asbestosis among guys wbo started working around World War II." Dr. W. Clark Cooper, the California scientist who headed a National Academy of Science panel on asbestos Ave years ago. says that a shift to new insulation and fireproofing materials, along with recent government attempts to regulate asbestos emissions in plants, construction sites, and ocher chancy areas, have considerably improved thmp for the worker and the populauon at large in the period since the report was issued. However, he points out. we won't know how seriously the asbestos problem effects the rest of the population until scientists learn more tboui the effects of the lesser amounts of asbestos inhaled by non-asbesios workers or leached into the water supply from natural asbestos deposits. That will involve performing many autopsies, measuring the amount snd location of ihe asbesios fiber, and then attempting to make some correlation between those levels snd the cause of death. Vrrdiet: The asbestos time bomb is still ticking Health risk with asbestos called high NSW 1HUNSWTCX l AP) - A Yale Unteenity reaedreher said at a tear ing m ssr*ya aatoama materials that the haaardaaf the Mhataneev* iMher than ts widely taawn. Dr. Rahert Sawyer af Yale, p *hyiteiaa and enctnaer. said he has deaa research an aabaatas haaarde ia he (cheats aware (he health af aeo "If you have aa nmeaed grayed. tehaeMB aetUac m be Mahie. ym have aa aaheetae eepeatr* haaard. Na ha* way* atom it.'' he said el a Dtoervnant at Envirarenenail Prw taetian hearing. Sawyer said his studies have fosid tltetal levels af aabeatoa in office buiMna that ip*aar la ha well mawiMMrt Tn rimntr Tbs snntt~n the syrtyad aa asteatse dwild he i It eotdd flafceWf. he He did not comment directly an barnits the ipny-or products DUP II 10912 DU 054906