Document YDkXrd3KzZJw8p0z7vJm1g7R8

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ________________ _______________________________________________ 1972 Daw Janet fcf Company Inc All Rights Reserved VOL LXXXVI NO 112 *** pacific coact Edition THURSDAY JUNE 8, 1972 m.crowaI Perilous Particles Tiny Asbestos Fibers First Scarring llien Complications , Apbeatoris begins with X ray evidence Of l scarring like that found In Mr 1 Bailey's lungs I As the disease progresses, the lungs stiffen and breathing becomes difficult Hre heart has to Pose a Health Threat work harder end can become enlarged. Ulti mately death may be caused by heart attack or suffocation To Workers and Public The mineral can also cause lung cancer-in fact asbestos can cause cancer just about any place In the body If particles are somehow In gested Hie ability of the sharp tiny particles Long Exposure Can Result to penetrate the lung once breathed In jias pr> ' duqfd a high Incidence of cancer In the mem In Lung Disease Cancer brane surrounding the lung a disease called mesothelioma In the general populace It Industry Seeks Solutions causes one In 10 000 deaths Of 333 asbestos workers being studied by Dr SeUkoff 32 have died of it so far _5 `The Bodies Are in the Street' The Mobil refinery where Mr Bailey works like all high heat factories In llje oil and chemical industries uses asbestos for Insula By BARRY NEWMAN Staff Rtpo itr of Tki Wall Btrixt Journal tlon Mr Bailey works with lnsulstlon workers Inside the furnaces ripping out soft brick NEW YORK--At Joseph Marino a gas sta There s asbestos and brick dust and a lot of Uon on the fringe of Manhattan a Spanish KRr sulphur too be eaya We complained about lam the proven method of cleaning an brake assembly goes like this Pull off old the the dust and dirt Nothing Is done to keep it dotfa The fans make It worse and you can t wheel aim an air hose at the exposed parts wet It because of the beat In the bricks The and blow the dust out ' company bought new respirators but under the A cloud of brown dust Invariably flies right conditions they clog in 1$ minutes Into the mechanics faces says Mr Marino1 But It doean t bother them We got masks and everything Mr Marino shrugs "The guys In the asbestos cutting rooms he adds there aren t any vacuum attachment! on the power saWs And when the Insulation workers don t use them What the heH I saw asbestos sbeets outride the room or mix What the mechanics don t seem to know--' cement In a wheelbarrow anybody can get like thousands of other mechanics--Is that the the dust V brown dust Is dangerous Brake Hirings are1 Company Disagrees made of asbestos And U a mechanic breathes Mobil disagrees with the description of In enough dust from the worn out linings It working conditions In response to a query the could eventually kill him company issued this statement `We have no Tfie lethal quality of tiny indestructible as* problems at the Paulsboro refinery concerning bfcstoe fibers that lodge In the lung la well the'use of materials containing asbestos We kriewn Widely publicised studies by Dr Irving use very little of such material and what we SeUkoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine do use la used under strictly controlled condl lead him to predict that of the roughly 230 000 Hons Recently the Occupational Safety and asbestos Industry workers today about S3 000 Health Administration carried out an extensive win die unnecessarily of occupational cancer and thorough Inspection of the entire Paulsboro In the next 10 to 15 years we will enter the as* refinery No violations were found In the bestoa cancer era, says Dr nerfSnff "IUs la plant s handling ot asbestos materials one of the great disasters of our time Mr Bailey's union the Oil Chemical and Hazards tor Others Too Atomic Workers Is protesting that inspection N The asbestos industry is well aware of the problem and Is taking action to combat It though critlts ssy the steps aren t as drastic as the Situation demands But asbestos Industry workers aren t the only ones who might tall prey to the lung cancers and other diseases caused by the mineral s llrttaUng fibers It s likely that mlUlons of workers in other indue tries rising asbestos fibers could be affected as well as ordinary people who have come Into oontact with asbestos In the atmosphere Perhaps the most tragic fact la that for those who have already been sufficiently ex posed changes In procedures and standards of Steven Wodka, a union health And safety ape clallst aays little attention wan paid to besJtb violations And he complains that after a week of aocompanylng the Inspectors the company Inexplicably 'had me kicked out of the plant Mobil declines comment on Mr Wodka a charge Oil refineries are by no means the only places where asbestos turns up The versatile substance Is a fireproof binder and insulator In thousands of products including such things as plastics shingles paper and pipes In moat of these the asbestos is harmless to users But Please Turn to Page IT Column S asbestos use-Including a new set announced yesterday fay the Department of Labor-are meaningless It takes as many as 40 years after the first exposure for asbestos related diseases to surface Controls Instituted now will Indeed have an effect bdt not for decades ' Harry Bailey Is one man who Ian t likely to find much solace In the new standards Mr Bailey Ian t an asbestos worker He s a brick layer In a Mobil Oil Corp refinery alongelde the Delaware River In Paulaboro N J He has been working at the plant for 33 years and every year be has gone to the company medl cal department for a chest X ray They never said there was anything wrong with me says 34-year-old Mr Bailey and In deed he has thus far developed no outward symptoms But a few months ago he and 18 other workers from the refinery went to Mount Sinai for an examination and every one of them proved to have scarred lungs--a sign of asbestoals a nonmallgnant lung disease (Mobil has refused to release his medical rec ords to the New York doctors Mr Bailey says The company declines to comment on the mat ter ) SCF-FA-6660 Perilous Particles Tiny Fibers Of Asbestos Pose a Health Threat Continued Prom first Page When working in closed quarters he says his depending on how Ite added to the products men use drop cloths and fans but they don't asbestos can pose a threat to workers In the wear respirators because they re too hot and factories where the products are made they don t work Until six months ago for instance asbestos Nevertheless the federal Environmental was being used as an antileak Ingredient In Protection Agency Is preparing regulations ex Prestons anUtreese made by Union Carbide peeled to he announced othlx summer that Corp At a Carteret N J plant run lor Union would attempt to impose controls -on air pollu Carbide by Oeneral American Transportation tlon from demolition operations These could the asbestos would arrive in paper sacks Include requirements for wetting down the Workers would cut the bags open with knives work areas or the removal of all asbestos be and feed the powdery white asbestos into tanks fore a building la toppled Hie technical prob of antifreeze says James Irving a tire and lem ol measuring dust levels however could safety engineer who has worked in the plant toes out the demolition regulation entirely tor 22 years ays James Krowder an engineer with the Theyd wear face masks but no protective cioKting Mr Irving says and the blowers In the room where they worked would send Che dust out to where others were working Then they d pile up the bags outside the building and a crew would pick them up and throw them onto the truck railing a big cloud of dust EPAs hazardous pollutants branch f, Setting a standard for asbestos concentre Uons at work sites has been similarly difficult for the fledgling Occupation Safety and Health Administration a year old Department ol Labor unit The reason Nobody knows how much aabestos i dangerous The esbestos in dustry led by Johns-Manvllle Oorp the larg Asbestos was removed from the Prestone est in the field has fought for a standard allow formula late last year Mr Irring says the Ing five asbestos fibers per cubic centimeter of change took place after the OU Chemical and air in the factories But the doctors at Mount Atomic workers made an issue of It Union Sinai and elsewhere argue that the only true Carbide denies that The decision says Herbert safe level of asbestos pollution would be zero. J Hanrdgan the company s technical manager of auto products was based on marketing con A Four Year Delay riderarions and had nothing to do with The government 9 decision yesterday was to health Impose a five-fiber average with a maximum Asbestos also can pose hazards to the ultl concentration In the work area of 10 fibers per mate consumers of certain products Bits of as cubic centlmenter at any time In 19T8 the new bestoa used In fitters for beverage making have regulations ceil for a more stringent two fiber been found In wine and beer for Instance and limit with the four year delay Intended to give could be dangerous If swallowed The use of the Industry a chance to control the problem such filters in beverage making seems to have The Industry aays even a two-fiber limit been curtailed but knowledge ot the hazard ap could hurt it economically J B Jobe Johns- pears to have had lliUe effect elsewhere even Manville a executive vice presided said at In medical circles Asbestos saye a eoon-to-be hearings In March that it would be socially Ir published study is being used In some hospl responsible to adopt such stringent regula tats as a filter for intraverrouriy fed Uqulds ttoas giving the particles and entry into the blood The company operates the largest asbestos stream factory in tbe country at Manville N J where, The use of asbestos In fireproof textiles Is according to a recent Mount Sinai study 40% common Once In a while asbestos fiber even ot the workers die of asbestos related cancer finds Its way Into ordinary fabrics Dr William Nicholson an associate of Dr Selioff at Mount Corrective steps being taken already Johns Manville maintains axe adequate to deal with Sinai has a girl s charcoal colored winter coat the problem without causing a cutback in the with red trim hanging In one of his laborato ties It s one of more than 203 000 Imported plant a production the lifeblood of the New Jersey town of 15 000 At least one asbestos fac coats made with i% asbestos fiber sold two lory run by a PPG Industries and Coming yean ago Some of them are presumably still being warn Give Chat coat a shake Dr Nicholson and you get dust levels as high as in sn asbestos factory Asbestos workers In the construction indus try are perhaps the most sensitive of ail work Glass Works joint venture in Tyler Texas closed last February because of profitability and concern over safety a spokesman aays Actually the curbing of asbesto* contamins tlon Is more an exercise in good housekeeping than capital expenditure White the cost of era to the asbestos hazard It was the construe tlon Industry which uses two thirds of all as I bestoa products that was the target of the first wave ot antlasbestos publicity more than four years ago At least four cities--New York Bos ton Chicago and Philadelphia--have banned the spraying of asbestos fireproofing material altogether Substitute materials are being de vetoped though there s some question being raised about their safety too stopping pollution at a power plant or smelter might run Into the hundreds of millions the cost of cleaning up an asbestos operation would be closer to a loth of that magnitude acegrd Ing to doctors engineers and union officials Some of the staples ol such an operation ai ready in use In many plants are compare tlvely inexpensive closed plastic bags for mix lng cement vacuum attachments on power saws drop cloths dust-suppressant chemicals and battery-powered respirator* that blow tU Afraid of a Ctieckup tered air into the user s face to ease dlscbm Among construction workers outaldq the as fort bestos trades--virtually all of whom are ex The new Labor Department standards do posed to asbestos whether they work with it dl Indeed call lor many of these work-practice rectly or not--concern remains relatively low rules But while they are unquestionably a Jacob Novak business manager of the Asbes needed step toward strict controls Dr SeUkoff tos Workers Unton local In New York says he says he also says he remains pessimistic has tried without success lor Instance to In The potential for eurvelllance Is remote he duce a group of plasterers to have checkups says because of the small underfinanced Some of these people don t want to face a free staffs of federal and state inspectors A survey X ray because they re afraid ot what they recently completed at Mount Sinai of 0 400 as might hear says Mr Novak a 43 year vet bestos workers around the country for in eran of the asbestos trades who had a nonraa nance showed that in 19T0 and lift there was llgnant tumor removed from a lung last winter only one dust count taken In asbestos plants tor Anxiety in the demolition industry also every 20 000 man-days worked seems minimal We don t have a dust prob And while he says he appreciates the aabes lem In demolition says Leonard Kapy vice tos Industry s expressed Interest in solving the president of Wrecking Corp of America one ot problem Dr fieUkoU is hard pressed to ex the largest demolition companies in the coun plain the continuing epathy among many work try Some people think you can take down a era and managers This Isn t just another building without dust he says with a laugh ecare he says Some people want to see the As for asbestos Mr Kapy Isn t worried 1 bodies in the street before they become con know fellas who have laid asbestos pipe for cemed Unfortunately In this case the bodies years and there s nothing wrong with them are in the street