Document bOb9v7qRYdqwqR1bL7vMZNEd1

IIILL AND KNOWLTON, Inc. GALUJP, N. M. INDEPENDENT B.&SOfl OCT 3 1974 j Safety Not % Assured ! - .' CHICAGO (AP) - Plastics industry officials quickly de nounced and filed lawsuits con-1 testijjgnfej/^edCTil-^fety stan- ` dards~- reducing worker expos- i ure to vinyl chloride, a gas that may cause cancer. One industry official called the standards "economically , unrealistic, technically unfeas- j ible, politically motivated and i medically ridiculous.-" President Todd C. Walker of; the Firestone Plastics Co., a di-! vision of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., added in a state-! , ment Tuesday that the standard ' 'puts the vinyl plastics industry on a collision course with '! economic disaster. More impor tantly, it throws two million jobs J down the drain, according loan , economic impact study made earlier this year by Arthur Lit tle & Co.," an industrial consult- , ing firm. Asst. U.S. Labor Secretary John H. Slender, who had an nounced the new Occupational Safety and Health Administra- : tion (OSHA1 standards earlier Tuesday, said some plants will have trouble meeting the tight ened standards, but he added, "This will not cause the indus- - try to shut down." t The stricter' regulations for vinyl chloride, a chemical used . in numerous plastic products. . . would cover 7.500 U.S. plants ; , with 350.000 workers.' Present standards will remain in effect1 until January wit a gradual, v" '-dheryearr-tftth^irtoiiir to the : tighterstandards.Stendersaid. Stender said provisions would . allow a company that cannot meet the standards to ask for a variance or a time extension. At least two industrial groups immediately filed court actions contesting the new standards. The Society of the Plastics In- dustry Inc., which represents more than SKI per cent of vinyl . cloride and polyvinyl chloride producers., filed suit in New . York asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for judicial review. A separate suit was filed by the ' Hooker Chemical Co., of Stam-; ford. Conn. ' j After several deaths from a j ' rare liver cancer which were.} thought to be related to the . handling of vinyl chloride were ' ; reported, the government in.! ; April ordered an emergency : , lowering from the then-' t prevailing limit of 500 parts per million to which workers.could (be exposed. ' k Preliminary tests conducted in Northbrook. 111., later that Tmonth showed that test mice 'developed liver cancer when ^exposed to concentrations of 50/ parts per million of vinyf ; chloride. , / E T 'U Z S S