Document Z4z5YqVNEgkjZVOKZE4RD4n9d

MANUFACTURING CHEMISTS ASSOCIAT9 ION 1825 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009 (202) 433-6126 CHEMICALS RESEARCH &fu^ AUG 2 Cud August 13, 1974 To: Technical Task Group on Vinyl Chloride Research Subject: Senate Hearings on Vinyl Chloride Gentlemen: The Senate Committee on Commerce, Subcommittee on the Environment, has scheduled one day of overview hearings on vinyl chloride,. Wednesday, August 21. We are informed that the hearings will be chaired by Senator John Tunne^, who conducted the hearings on the Toxic Substances Control bill last year. Dr. T. R. Torkelson will appear as a witness for MCA? his testimony will focus on the industry research programs, past, present and planned, that MCA has been involved in. ! At this time, the other organizations or individuals that are scheduled to appear are: Environmental Protection Agency, National Cancer Institute , the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, Dr. Irving Selikoff, and the Society of the Plastics Industry. The hour and place of the hearings have not yfet been announced. KDJ/mb Technical Task Group on Vinyl Chloride Research wvc 000006031 Monday,August 12, im TflE WASHINGTON POST Cancer, Death Rates Foilind High In Little Elk Valley Leonard Madison, left, a former foreman at the Galaxy plant, died of chnoer in early August. By BUI Richards W&shingwm Post 8taii Writer PROVIDENCE, Md.--No one is quite sure why, but for the past few years the people of the Little Elk Valley here have been dyim off at an alarming rate. Since 1067, 20 of the 120 people who have lived here for more than two years have died, according to a study of the Little Elk's popu lation by a local doctor. The ages of those who died range from 5 to 70. That figure puts the death rate for the valley about 2.2 times ahead of the rest of surrounding Cecil County, in the northern corner of the state. More ominous, Dr. Pietro U. Capurro's tabu lation shows that at least eight of those deaths, and possibly more, have been from cancer, making.the cancer death rate here seven times the rest of the county's 53,000 residents. The county's cancer rate is above average for rural areas in the US,, according to statisticians from the National Cancer Institute. Suspicion concerning the valley s unusually high death and cancer levels has been com pounded by several types of cancers identified here by Capurro, a 49-year-old pathologist and director of the laboratory at Union Hospital in nearby Elkton. The cancers--lymphomas, leukemia and pan creas cancer--have aU been linked in the past in various studies and by medical researchers to exposure to certain industrial chemicals. Exposure to certain industrial chemicals can lead to cancer that possibly may not appear for 10 or more years, according to National Can cer Institute specialists. All of the cancer victims described in Capur ro's report lived within a mile of the Little Elk Valley's only industrial plant--The Gal axy Chemical Company, which has been re processing chemicals here since 1961. Paul J. Mraz. the president of Galaxy, des cribed Capurro's findings as "unsubstantiated" and "nothing new" during a short telephone interview recently. Mraz declined to comment further on the doctor's report or allow a reporter to tour the plant and conduct a lengthier in-person inter view, "I can't make any further comment on the advice of my attorney," he said. During the last four years a number of resi dents including Capurro. who lived in the valley for four years until 1972. complained that chemical fumes from the plant had made them ill. Samples of the air around the Galaxy plant, taken by investigators for the Maryland bureau of air quality control after complaints in 1970 and 1971, showed the presence of about 25 chemicals in the valley's air and water that were foreign to the area but that matched a list of chemicals handled by the plant, accord ing to Carl York, head of the bureau's com pliance section. One of the chemicals repeatedly identified in the samples, York said, was benzene, a substance that Mraz recently acknowledged his VVC 000006032 Cam ?r9 Death Rate? Found High inMd, Valley Both Mraz and Peter Nerger, head of the MarisoL Chemical Company, a Mid dlesex, N.J., firm that sup plies Galaxy with chemicals for reprocessing, refused in telephone conversations to disclose whet chemicals the plant has handled recently. Krayblll, of the National Cancer. Institute, who has not studied either the valley or its Inhabitants, said expo sure to carcinogenic chemi cals did not mean that can cer would appear immedi ately. Cancer cases after such exposure, he said, of ten do not appear until years after exposure. The presence of the car eer types noted by Capurro,. and the Identification of chemicals found in past samplings of air "could pose a potential cancer problem which should be further studied by an epidemiologi cal investigator, Krayblll said. Galaxy's last problem with eomplainst concerning Us chemical emissions oc curred in 1972 when a Caroine County judge awarded 10 residents of the valley, in cluding Capurro, a total of $34,932 after they filed suit complaining they were made 111 by the plant's fumes. Since then, residents near the plant who were inter viewed recently by The Washington Post said they had not experienced any problem with fumes until this year. Several persons said they had been bothered by fumes this year in Janu ary, March and july. Olive Fecihy, who runs a general store with her hus band George about 150 yards west of the plant, said the fumes had become par ticularly powerful in recent weeks. "Three weeks ago," she said, "1 noticed a bluish haze coming from the direc tion of the plant one morn ing, When 1 went out to hang my wash It was so Strong that 1 collapsed and had to crawl back inside on my hands and kneas." Nancy Chadwick, who lives on the east side of the lint, said she too had smelled fumes recently. "They blow into the house and my whole family just starts coughing," she said. "Since they've started, we've been tired and dopey ail the W-1* Rebecca Madison, who also lives in the valley, said several weeks ago she walked by the plant with her 1-year-old son, John Paul. "We must have picked the wrong1 time because we got a good whiff of what ever it was they were doing in there," she said. "John Paul began throwing up right on the spot." "I want to get out of here," she said. "I don't know what they're doing in that plant but I don't want my son to grow up breath ing that stuff." Her father. Leonard Madi son, 60, worked for Galaxy for 11 years until he devel oped what was diagnosed 14 months ago as throat cancer. He died in early August Interviewed just before his death. Madison said he was down from 175 pounds to 105. He was barely able to speak in a croaking rasp of a whisper and said he be lieved that a combination of cigarette smoking and inha lation of the fumes at the plant was responsible for his condition, ``No one wore masks," he said. "The chemicals we'd breathe would burn our throats and make us sick but they kept telling us 'it won't hurt you.' I believed them then and.now I know better. But it's too late for me now." Charles Dunlap, 22. a sec ond worker known to have developed cancer, died In 1871 after working for Gal axy at the plant ior 13 months. Capurro, who diag nosed the cancer with a nu clear scanning process, said he died of cancer of the pan creas. Mraz said the man had "stomach trouble" be fore he was hired, but did not know If the man had cancer before he was hired. No outside agency has conducted a medical investi gation of the dozen or so workers now at the plant or on any of the plant's past employees, state air quality official York said. Mraz re fused to tell a reporter whether his company has undertaken medical chocks on present or past employ ees. Madison. York and others who worked for Galaxy said turnover at the plant has been high. A number .)f the workers there have been sent to Galaxy front the Maryland state emoloyment office in Elkton. Stall* offi cials said there is no re quirement that the employ ment office notify workers that they may be handling dangerous chemicals. Turnover in the valley also has been high in recent years. Capurro said that 60 per cent of the population living around the plant had either moved away or died since 1967. Capurro. identified eight of the dead as cancer vic tims, using hospital records, state and county informa tion, his own records and in terviews with the relatives of the dead persons. Two other deaths, he said, may have involved persons who had cancer but died of other causes. All of the cancer victims, who ranged in age from 5 years old to 70, lived less than a mile from the plant and had been exposed to the valley's air for at least two years. Only one, a part-time painter, had any other expo sure to chemicals, the doc tor said. Last year, Capurro sent the results of his findings and the previous reports on chemicals in the valley to Dr. N. E. Day, a highly re garded biostatistician for the World Health Organiza tion's International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. Day wrote back in Febru ary of this vear that he noted an unusually high in cidence of lymphomas and pancreatic tumors in Capurro's findings and that ihese two types of tumors are in creasingly being found among chemists. "In a population of 120, over seven years, you would expect .088 lymphomas and .067 pancreas tumors," Day wrote. "The probability of ob serving two pancreas tumors by chance is about .006," Day continued, "and of ohserving the four lymphomas is less than .000001, i.e. very small." Dr. Sidney Cutler, a biostatistidan anc chief of the biometry brai ch of the National Cancer Institute, said during an inti rview that he had no knowle dge of the accuracy of C apurro's raw data. "But," he s|aid, "if we're talking about a population as small as he (Capurro) re ports, and in iuch a limited number of years, th&resdits certainly look unusual." Both York land Capurro said they have requested a study of the {conditions in the valley and of its past and present residents by an outside federal agency. Such investigations of plants where {workers have been believed exposed to carcinogenic chemicals have usually been handled by the National Institute for Occu pational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a federal investi gative agency under the De partment of Health, Educa tion and Welfare. NIOSH sen t Dr. Carey Young, one of its investiga tors. to the Lit le Elk Valley in March. Young inter viewed Capurrp and left af ter the Interview without checking the plant or the valley's residents and has not returned si ice. "It was a pieliminary In terview," he St id in a tele phone interivew from NIOSH headquarters in Cin cinnati. "We hive other pri orities taking ohr manpower and time. Wc icel some as pects of the valley's situa tion are interesting, though, and we may consider some kind of contr; ictual study for a full evaluation some time in the future." Such vague promises of attention have done little to ease the fears of people like Olive Feelhy, who counts off on her fingers tie names of her neighbors who have died recently md repeats the details of ea di death for visitors to her stare. "This used to be a place where people (ied of old age and you'd go years with out a funeral Sometimes," she said. "Good [Lord, nowa days I spend mbre time In the funeral parlor than I do in my own homeJ" 00000603** vv c