Document ba2zvmbgODeq6Y0k5pp7z0Ng

Cc -ed by MCA Jaua'ary 30, 1974 Translations Unit/TR.12.8973/^5/75 4 January 1974 PVC DISEASE TO BE INVESTIGATED Reference: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.12.73 Bonn/Troisdorf 19 December Many cases of illness among persons employed in the PVC plant at Dynamit Nobel AG in Troisdorf have caused concern among the local population. As Dynamit Nobel AG confirmed on Wednesday, 43 workers so far have shown symptoms of the mystery illness, which is known only as "PVC disease" at present. Two foreign workers are said to have become completely incapable of working already. PVC (polyvinyl chloride) is a widely used plastic that is produced by a number of other chemical companies apart from Dynamit Nobel AG. How seriously the situation is regarded is apparent from a statement issued by the West German Minister of Labour on Wednesday to the effect that the government had instructed investigations to be carried out into the hitherto unknown causes of the disease. Details are to be laid down in January by a panel of experts. According to the Ministry of Labour, the relevant employers* association is working on the assumption that the disease is caused by vinyl chloride. It was stated that the Ministry of Labour Committee considers that operatives working in the neighbourhood of PVC autoclaves must be medically examined. When the various cases of illness became known local factory inspectorates ordered steps to be taken to provide increased health safeguards on the plant. The symptoms of the condition are unconsciousness, attacks of dizziness, changes in the hands and feet, headache and nausea. According to a report from the works in question, the first cases of physical damage to workers in the PVC plants were observed in Germany in the Spring of 1972. Dynamit Nobel have been producing PVC since 1951. The Press Section at the Troisdorf works stated that: The government industrial medical officer, in agreement with the Chemical Industry Employers' Association, has instructed Professor .Rudolf Gross, who holds the chair of Medecine at the University of. Cologne to examine some of the affected persons and to produce a report. 6 patients from the PVC plant have now been examined by Professor Gross at the university teaching hospital. A report on some of his findings will be issued in December. see 5~0607 TR' 12902 Translation from Der Spiegel No 50/1975 Cop-ved by MCA Ja* ry 30, 1974 > MEDICINE Dangerous Plastic - A new and deadly occupational disease has been discovered by Medical Specialists in Bonn: workers engaged in the production of PVC risk incurable diseases of the liver. :. y.y Pipe6 and Venetian^blinds, curtains and films and whole host of articles in common use are made from PVC, a hard, durable plastic which can be moulded into almost any product. German producers alone have distributed almost a million tonnes of polyvinyl chloride over the country in the last year. :v| PVC has so far been responsible for the death of as yet unknown numbers of chemical workers. For the production of this much desired material, w.iich can be combined in so many different ways with plasticisers, fillers and pigments that it has become one of the leading products of the plastics age within the last twenty years, is apparently very much more dangerous than had been previously been assumed. yi | .I Medical specialists of the Bonn University Clinics have this year diagnosed a "vinyl chloride disease" in at least 40 of the 120 PVC workers in a labouring chemical factory. However, the number of cases is probably considerably higher than this. According to preliminary comments made by the doctors thi6 newly discovered I "occupational illness" is characterised by a "serious prognosis and a relatively . ! high mortality rate in men of predominantly younger age groups". According to Prof. Glinther Veltman writing in the "Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrlft" : "Certainly more than 10# as revealed by our enquiries". ' i| j This occupational disease first came to the notice of dermatologist Veltman and his team in the form of characteristic changes to the skin, particularly in the fingers. However, they were soon forced to the conclusion that still worse was to be revealed by this already well-known PVC symptom : vinyl chloride harms blood and blood vessels, bones, nerve6, liver and lungs. As summed up by Veltman : "A disease of the system". ! ' .J j j This plastics material apparently places at risk only those individuals actually present when the colourless vinyl chloride gas, obtained from mineral oils, i6 liquefied under pressure and compressed to form powder in the large reactors known as "autoclaves". This "polymerisation process" is necessary to- produce the PVC which is then sold as '^ostalit" (Farbwerke Hoechst) or "Vinoflex" (BASF): Products which are not toxic as far as the end consumer is concerned, unless, in the words of plastics experts, "Plasticisers migrate from them". Those cases in which these toxic substances have teen liberated from such materials have . indeed been reported for a considerable period of time. j j J > .\ ! 8090- On the other hand, the "closed system" of the autoclaves gives rise to dangerous leakages. The Bonn Medical Specialists have been investigating "possibilities of gas leakages and associated inhalation risks" at numerous points ir. the production process. VC-gas escapes when the reactors are discharged and opened as well as through "leaks in the autoclaves". For many years doctors have been aware of the toxic nature of the gas and its narcotic effect. Almost without exception personnel engaged on the cleaning of autoclaves complain of feeling "dopey", giddiness and headaches. For this reason the "maximum allowable concentration" ("MAX") of the VC gas has been repeatedly reduced. According to Veltman, however, "we have so far not been aware of regular gas concentration measurements hoi nr- carried out on nmiunt-i en " Translation: Ref: TR,12,917 Frankfurter Allgcmoine Copiec3~^by MCA Janua * 30, 1974 Zoitung, ?. Jan 74 LIVER DAMAGE IN PVC PRODUCTION In spite of abundant warning signs no adequate supervision Like many other occupational diseases, the damage incurred during the production of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, is only now, more than 30 years after the start of industrial PVC production, being fully realised. The scale of the health hazard involved.in PVC production was first exposed in a publication by doctors of Bonn Univeir'*' *y Teaching Hospital (Universittitsklinik Bonn), who found skin damage, changes in the ends of fingers and toes, as well as liver and spleen damage, in 45 workers at Dynamit Nobel AG's PVC plant in Troisdorf. According to reports by H J Marsteller of the Medical Klinik and Susanne Juhe of the Skin Klinik in the "Deutsehen Medizinischen Wochenschrift" (Vol. 98, p 2311), 45 of the 120 workers in this plant have so far been exhaustively examined in Bonn, Some of these patients were suffering from skin changes, in others the examination was carried out on prophylactic grounds. Most of these workers were found to be suffering from various types of liver damage of obscure origin. In addition to enlargement of the liver, biochemical malfunctions of the liver were detected* Histological tissue changes were finally established. Since, in spite of the diversity of the liver changes all the patients had been engaged in PVC production for 1,5 to 21 years. This can only be an occupational disease involving FVC. In 19^3 circulatory disorders, inflammation and hardening of the skin, thyroid deficiency and enclargement of the liver in PVC workers were reported for the first time in Roumania. It wa6 only after re-publication of this work in 196? that similar observations were reported in Germany, France, England and the United States, But here the emphasis was on changes to fingers and toes* This led, according to the Marsteller and Jiihe report, to "attention being directed to the liver damage first noted in PVC production in the Soviet Union in 1949", The scientists are making no statements about the prognosis of the PVC liver damage. Even the frequency of this illness among other PVC producers is unknown. Possibly the threat to personnel is heavily dependent on local working conditions. Since the morphological picture of these liver changes corresponds to chronic toxemia, such as also occurs from contact with chlorinated hydrocarbons, eg chloroform, the health risk could be determined by the concentration of the gaseous initial product, vinyl chloride, in the atmosphere. Since such a hazard was certainly not unforseeable, and must indeed have been expected in view of the existing publications, the question arises as to whether either the venyl chloride concentration or the health of the workers were properly supervised in these plants. see 5-0609