Document X7pQZ9Ye6NbXda5pxj6wQ44Q4

Government Jl) WC-Fifo Conflicting views on vinyl chloride coalesce Industry decries OSHA's no-detectable level rule as unnecessarily harsh; both labor and ACS support proposed standard Mere mentioning of the words vinyl chloride to Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials who presided over public hearings on the agency's proposed permanent work place standard for the chemical may well lead to mutterings that enough is enough. In nine days, the officials lis tened to 35 hours of direct testimony by 44 panels of witnesses--and many additional hours in question and an swer sessions--and received 89 written submissions for the hearing record. Much of the data presented OSHA is conflicting- All this is of little comfort to the officials as OSHA has until Oct. 5 to come up with its final version of a permanent standard. It's likely that OSHA may well pick some middle ground standard--tougher than that proposed by industry, softer than that initially proposed by the Government--which, if either labor or industry is unhappy about it, may well be challenged in the courts anyway. Data presented at the hearings tend ed to coalesce, in effect, into two posi tions: that of industry and that of Government-labor-ACS. For instance, a spokesman for the Society of the Plas tics Industry maintained that OSHA's proposed work-place standard--which, among other things, calls for a no-detenable level of vinyl chloride--"is not technologically feasible and, if adopt ed. would shut down the industry." In contrast. Peter Bommarito, president of the United Rubber Workers, said that the "OSHA proposal comes closer to the ideal standard than any yet pro posed or promulgated for any work place hazard." However. Dr. Daniel P. Boyd, direc tor of the office of standards develop ment for OSHA. although emphasizing that the proposed standard is just that--a proposal--said that "it repre sents our best judgment based on the information available on May 10 . . . our present judgment is that vinyl chloride is a carcinogenic agent." Dr. Boyd pointed out that in protecting employees from a carcinogenic material, "We are operating in the area of many unknowns. For example, we do not know the mecha nism by which a chemical carcinogen operates or whether a safe level of ex posure can be set." Much of the testi mony presented at the hearing dealt with industry's, labor's, and research workers' effort to resolve the latter question. The initial impetus for the vinyl chloride industry came during World Wax II when it was used as a substitute for natural rubber. According to Dr. Irving J. Seiikoff, professor of medicine at City University of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine, "This immediately points to a problem of current vinyl chloride-polyvinyl chlo ride investigations; the industry is a relatively young one, and the late ef fects of toxic exposure have only begun to appear; most of our experience is still ahead of us." He told the hearings that clinical field studies axe being conducted that include examinations of more than 1200 vinyl chloride-PVC polymerization workers. Although all the results are not yet in, he reported that studies of 354 current and former workers at Goodyear's plant in Niagara Falls. N.Y., "demonstrated a signifi cant prevalence of liver abnormalities, peripheral vascular changes, and lung abnormalities." Information on deaths from two plants, one which produces monomer and the other polymer, was presented by Dr. John M. Peters of the Harvard School of Public Health. He said that studies on 161 deceased white males showed "a 50% excess of deaths due to cancer." There was a "60% excess of lung cancer 113 cases with 7.9 expect ed) and a 320% excess of brain cancer (five cases with 1.2 expected) with the number of liver cancer cases being 10 times those expected in a similar unexpoeed population. He stressed that these studies, though preliminary, show that multiple cancer sites are in volved and cancer is increasing over time in the population. Dr. Peters agreed with Dr. Seiikoff in that he said, "1 do not believe we will know the full cancer-causing potential of vinyl chloride for several yean. At this point the only way to assure an end to this serious hazard is to eliminate the expo sure." The vinyl chloride-PVC industry, in general, took the opposite view. Harry E. Connen, vice president of Diamond Shamrock Chemical, told the hearings, "In our judgment the cases of worker illness recently discovered in industry are the delayed result of conditions that were common many yean ago but are no longer present in today's plants." Dr. Richard W. McBurney, corporate medical director of Diamond Shamrock Chemical, pointed out that "during the early yean of PVC produc tion attention was given to vinyl chlo ride vapors only because of the anes thetic qualities and the explosion haz ard. Since the explosion hazard occurs at upward of 30,000 p.p.m. and the an esthetic effect at 1000 to 5000 p.p.m. the vinyl chloride levels in work areas were undoubtedly quite high." Dr. Carl U. Dernehl. associate medi* cal director of Union Carbide, told the hearing of a health survey conducted by SPI covering 16 plants employing 2372 persons whose current work per mits exposure to vinyl chloride, plus 471 who had worked with it in the past. He said that the study identified 1402 men who were exposed to vinyl SPI's vinyl chloride rules would differ sharply from OSHA's RSV 0006496 My 22. 1974 C4EN t chloride at least 10 years ago. of which 416 had a latent period of more than 20 years. Also identified were 787 men ex posed continuously to vinyl chloride for more than 10 yean, with 104 being ex posed for more than 20 yean. Dr. Der- nehl said, `'Examinations of these men have failed to show the existence of ab normal liver function testa in greater proportion than would be fauna in a control population. There is no case of angiosarcoma of the liver among these men even though their exposure time is sufficient for the disease to have oc curred and exposures are believed to have been in excess of 50 p.p.m." He concluded that "these data fail to sup port the need for an exposure level as drastic as that proposed in the stan dard." The SPI survey's findings were sup ported by Diamond Shamrock. Dow Chemical, B. F. Goodrich, Tenneco Chemicals, and Firestone. All reported that despite extensive surveys of their current and former vinyl chloride-PVC workers, no further cases of or deaths due to liver cancer have been found, other than the 13 previously reported to OSHA. Industry also felt that the proposed standard was too far-reaching. Accord ing to Anton Vittone, president of B. F. Goodrich Chemical, "The produc tion of vinyl chloride, its polymeriza tion into PVC resin, and the processing of PVC resin into semifinished or fin ished products is treated in the pro posed standard as one industrial health problem." However, he contended, "Each is an entirely different operation posing its own problems, permitting and requiring different solutions." Of particular concern to many indus try witnesses was the inclusion of PVC processors and fabricators, such as phonograph record makers, under the proposed standard. Monitoring data on vinyl chloride exposure in processing plants were presented by several wit nesses, including Philip J. Weaver, di rector of industrial affairs for B. F. Goodrich. In a conclusion that agreed with those of other witnesses, he said, "Our data does not support this con cept of inclusion of processor opera tions" under the proposed standard since "we find no detectable levels of vinyl chloride in most of the processing work places." In addition to urging that fabricators and processors not be included under the permanent standard, the Society of the Plastics Industry proposed that in vinyl chloride and PVC plants there be a stepped reduction in worker expo sure. This is in sharp contrast to the American Chemical Society position presented et the hearings by Dr. Ste phen T. Quigley, head of the Society's department of chemistry and public af faire, and Howard H. Fawcett, chair man of the ACS Committee on Chemi cal Safety. ACS, in essence, supports the OSHA proposed standard, asking PVC fabricators should not bo Included under the exposure standard, SPI urges only that the standard be defined as a minimum practical level capable of de tection by a recommended method rather than as a no-detectable level. SPI's proposed standard drew sharp criticism from Anthony Mazzocchi, citizenship-legislative director of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers In ternational Union. He said, "It will be a tragedy if OSHA adopts the so-called `common denominator' kind of stan dard that SPI sponsored. Under this approach a standard is adopted that everybody can meet. But those plants that can go further are under no incen tive. at that time, to do anything more." Most companies at the hearing said that although it would be difficult, they could live with SPI's proposed standard. Two companies, however, re ported that they are already operating at much lower levels. Dr. V. K. Rowe, Dow director of toxicological research in health and environmental affaire, said that the company, "is generally operating within an eight-hour timeweighted average (TWA) concentration of 10 p.p.m.; however, brief malfunc tions and other temporary situations occasionally result in short-term excur sions in excess of 10 p.p.m." And Air Products and Chemicals' John T. Barr reported that his company has an eight-hour TWA in the 20- to 25-p.p.m. range for workers in its polymerization building and even lower levels for those in other job locations. Tenneco Chemi cals, however, estimated that it would have to spend in excess of S10 million to reach the exposure levels recom mended by SPI. Vinyl chloride-PVC industry wit nesses contended throughout the hear ings that meeting the proposed stan dard was just not technologically feasible, unless workers wore air-sup plied respiratory equipment all the time. However, Calgon Corp., which was moved from 20th to last on the witness list, declared that technology waa available to remove vinyl chloride from the air. William Lovett of the company's activated carbon division said that the monomer can readily be adsorbed on activated carbon in con centrations ranging from l p.p.m. to more than 30% by volume in air. He said laboratory results show that 100% removal of vinyl chloride from air or nitrogen streams is technically possible using dual beds. Earlier in the hearing Tenneco Chemicals testified that it has included carbon adsorption to recover the mono mer from two small process streams, neither of which contains air. in plans for its new PVC plant in Pasadena. Tex. However, it pointed out that it considers this activated carbon method to be "wholly impractical" where large volumes of air and small concentra tions of vinyl chloride are involved. Mr. Bommarito expressed the belief that the standard can be met. saying that where "engineering controls may not be applicable, personal protective equipment can be used." He added that especially in newer plants the problem is "characterized by the will, not the ability, to do the job." He con cluded that "the medical facts are in and the problem ia now in the social and political arena." International U.S. reactor design loses out in U.K. U.S. reactoT design has lost out in its bid for the next generation of nuclear power stations in the U.K. The British government has opted instead for the steam-generating heavy-water reactor (SGHWR) system. The immediate plan ia to build three twin-reactor sta tions with an overall capacity of about 4000 Mw. of electricity. The first of these stations should be operating by 1982. The decision, taken by Eric Varley. U.K. Secretary of State for Energy, bucks the trend in other countries, where planned nuclear power programs center on U.S. designs for light-water reactor (LWR) systems, either General Electric's boiling-water reactor iBWR) or Westinghouse's pressurized-water reactor (PWR). Indeed, at public hear ings before the Energy Resources Sub committee of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology last December, both Ar thur Hawkins, chairman of the Central Electricity Generating Board, which supplies power to England and Wales, and Sir Arnold Weinstock. managing director of British General Electric, which has a 50% stake in U.K. Nation al Nuclear Corp., came out strongly in favor of LWR's, primarily because the technology ia already proven and can be fairly quickly brought into operation without major design and development effort (C&EN, Feb. 18, page 11). Mr. Varley cites a number of reasons for deciding on the SGHWR route. "In the government's judgment.-it will pro vide power reliably and we can proceed 10 CAEN July 22, 1974 RSV 0006499