Document VJG3joxDqx3jRw5pq4L08Naw4

i Tuesday, February 18, 1975 Intevnal Medicine Ileus, Feb. 1, 1975 -2- Vinyl Chloride Concern Called Unneeded for Present Workers Internal Medicine New.% Service Concern that exposure lo vinyl chloride, the monomer of the plastic polyvinyl chloride, may cause liver cancer or other occupational disorders may be unneces sary for present workers, according to a physician and a toxicologist who have been seeing workers from polyvinyl chlo ride plants for several years. Greater concern for workers* health and safety and improved controls on ex posure levels in the plants may have eliminated the danger before (he connec tion between vinyl chloride and angiosar coma was discovered. Dr. John L. Creech Jr . of Louisville, and V. K. Rowe. Sc. D., of the Dow Chemical Company, Midland, Mich., agreed in separate interviews with Intf.rnai. Medicine News. Fifteen workers have been reported h angiosarcoma, an exceedingly rare . -(tcer that is always fatal. A more com mon condition associated with vinyl chloride exposure is acro-osteolysis. a skin disease characterized by blanching or pain in the fingers (Raynaud's syndrome); thickened, nodular patches of skin on the hands; and the disintegration of the distal bones of the fingers. Sees Little Hazard Dr. Rowe told this newspaper that he feels that under present conditions, work ers in vinyl chloride plants do not face a very great hazard of either angiosarcoma or skin disease because exposure levels in most plants making polyvinyl chloride are now much lower than they were previ ously. There have been no significant vinyl chloride-related health problems at the Dow plants, where operations have been maintained at relatively low levels of ex posure. Dr. Creech, who has seen many of the reported cases of angiosarcoma and was the first to recognize the association of the liver tumors with vinyl chloride workers, agreed that there is probably little danger for present workers. Both the acro-osteolysis and the an giosarcomas were found mainly in those workers who cleaned out the reaction ket tles. where the levels of vinyl chloride, were in the range of hundreds of thousands of parts per million. Workers in the same job may now bee no exposure whatsoever because they work with a self-contained respiratory system that eHminales all atmospheric particles of vinyl chloride, he said. None of the patients with angiosar comas had skin diseases that could be re lated to their vinyl chloride exposure. Of eight cases of acro-osleolysis observed by Dr. Creech, no patients had any detect able liver abnormalities. Because of the observed carcinogenic activity of vinyl chloride and the associa tion between the plastic and various skin disorders, it seemed likely that an in creased incidence of skin tumors might be found in exposed workers. However, no such increase was found, and there were no skin tumors in any of the patients with angiosarcomas, liver changes, or spleno megaly that could be attributed to vinyl chloride. Dr. Creech said. Despite the report of one person who developed angiosarcoma after living downwind from a polyvinyl chloride plant, there is probably no danger to people liv ing around such plants, he said. Since even workers within the plants who worked within 10 feet of the reaction kettles have not developed the cancer, it seems that the small amounts of vinyl chloride that might escape to the outside woukl have little effect. The one reported case was probably a chance occurrence. Dr. Creech suggested. -There is also evidence that angiosar comas produced by vinyl chloride and other angiosarcomas are two different en tities. Cases that have been reported that are not related to vinyl chloride often have distant metastases of the tumor, most fre quently to the lungs. None of the patients with angiosarcoma linked to vinyl chloride have distant metastases, although some have had spread of the cancer to the lungs by direct extension, invading through the dia phragm, he said. While this may be small comfort lo pa tients who now face a certain death from the disease, the absence of metastases has proven to indicate good prognosis in other types of cancer. UNDERDEVELOPED NATIONS AGREE ON PU\N TO GAIN ECONOMIC STATURE ALGIERS (UPI) -- MORE THAN 10ft THIRD WORLD NATIONS HAVE CONE UP HITH A PROGRAM TO 'TRANSFORM THE WORLD ECONOMY1 -- AND TO GIVE THEMSELVES A BIGGER SHARE IN IT. THE PROGRAM* ALREADV AGREED ON IN COHNITTEESr HAS TO RECEIVE FORMAL ENDORSEMENT TODAV BV 104 NONALIGNED NATIONS. THE PROGRAM RELIED HEAVILY ON THE MONEY AND GOOD WILL OF THE WEALTHY WESTERN NATIONS. WESTERN AGREEMENT HILL BE SOUGHT WHEN THE PROGRAM GOES BEFORE THE U.N. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION CONFERENCE IN PERU MARCH 12-26. THE PROGRAM SEEKS TO INCREASE THE DEVELOPING NATIONS* SHARE OF WORLD INDUSTRIAL OUTPUT FROM SEVEN TO 25 PER CENT BV THE END OF THE CENTURY. ONE SECTION OF THE PROGRAM DEALT HITH WHAT THE DEVELOPING NATIONS COULD DO FOR THEMSELVES. THE OTHER SECTION FOCUSED ON WHAT REQUIRED HELP FROM THE WEST WAS NEEDED. AMONG THEMSELVES. THE NATIONS ENDORSED THE NEED FOR CARTELS AMONG PRC'&CiERS CF ?mW MATERIALS# FOR REGIONAL ECONOMIC BLOCS AND FOR FINANCIAL AID FROM OIL-RICH DEVELOPING NATIONS TO POORER COUNTRIES. i