Document baM5jnyozLx7g2xd3gbK2qV90

S-Ije&cisljinglonitlost SUNDAY, APRIL ID, 1971 G1 Peril of Chemicals Is Growing Senate Panel Will Study Toxic Substances Act By Victor Cohn | "on human health and the en man f t than DDT`s. A recent erful bacterii-killi r In many W*iMnw awl tutt writ*. vironment" before it can be report said every US. child soapa, inti-acne p oducta and Americans htvo surrou ided introduced. "begir i life in ulero" (the surgeons' handc eansers--is themselves with chemicals, Epstein, the doubter, spoke (hot may endanger their lives, i in an intorviow at a meeting Arsenic. cadmium, I)DT, PCDS, ntlrosamlnes, he .ach- of the Environmental .Mutagen womb! today "with chlori- present In its u ers* blood noted hydrocarbon inscctl- streams. It is totli to rata. In cldc, .1 its body tissue,- DD r, | ,,,, alsrmln, Tra.s episode, It, loraphcne, prntachloroph inol, Society in Washington. Direc DDE, leptochlor, dleldrln and'use preceded eti vulltona lit plasticizers, mercury, *'Ion tor of Environmental laborato othen j six children I eated for ium. The list It growing, and ries at Boston's Children's /a American Chemical, burns. It is also it :d In hoapl* the peril almost certain y Is Cancer Research Foundation, Soclet meeting In Baltimorel tain and by many r jw mol hen growing, too, -- oversha low ing the environmental darner he helped ciety two organize that years ago. it so in of an Alaska pipeline or S >T. cludes many leading toxicolo This hr.* been given elurm*1 gists and geneticists. Ing emphasis in the past two weeks at two meetings 01 sci Both at its meeting and Los Angeles alt last week, in at entists. the most environmentally ori The subject, snd what c-it ental n.cciinu evui held of Um* tea r*li `'the covemmcnt's in American adequate response." are about] Chemical Society there was to be Investigated by a go* em Item after item of bad news inent operations subcomm tteei about chemicals. headed by Sen. Abraham .tlbl- Among them: heard hat phthalates alio used, t, ,,.tfh their bs.les. Some In pie tics sre contaminating! federal official* think the medic. I blood. They are usedi Food and Drug Xdmlnlstrv In blod storage bass (from, " ' d least this which they mi-rate) In lublnqiu,c' ."hl, ,TM011 "ln " for ir. ravenous feedlns and, ,<udl" "" fluJs nvi ii much the' . .. count-y's van supply of food; .**** .l*. ,f !?[* wrapprigs and containers.)" um'mcr' *5-- Phihalite kills chick heart cm- n'rTMr>--' >' a.peered III bryo .ell. in laboratory cul-! "ft "* turoa. Animal testa oimwmii "ft.1^ (but d) not Drove) that ihcv1 t*oun-wlno from whirago. It coff (D-Conn.). 1U heatings start Tuesday. A draft of a proposed ad ministration "Toxic Sub stances Act" is called **a small step forward, but far too weak, giving the illusion of progress" by one of the sub committee's scheduled wit nesses, Dr. Samuel S. Epstein. For Advance Testing But Environmental Protec tion Agency Director WUitam D. Buckelthaut, who sent the act to Congress, promises "to DDT apparently has! may bu implicated in mystorU ^whtcV^lMall"!? caused genetic changes In ously I rowlns a sometimes (a-i `"ftL1!'' rc #iM lt chromosomes of wild fruit! tal e.ndlllon called "lunci10 Jh* __________ rite* throughout the West. shock," where liny clot. In the' T,, Prof. Theodosius Dobchansky toss impede drculat'on . ,,r arsenic exiaeia hlihh of Rockefeller University ob served the chromosome changes. Dr. Lau-rcnce Cory and others at California's St. Mary's College have corre lated them with DDT spraying patterns over the years. Cory eatled (his dangerous tinker ing with life-support system*. Dr. Robert Rubin of Johns; st,nd,rd, l,, |. urban areas' Hopkins found "slpniflcantj water supplies. Dr. Henry quantities of phthaletes not I schrodder at Dartmouth Medb only ir. hospital blood supplies] ,,! School says: "There la a but also in urine speeimena | _ correlation ,,otf cceerrttaaiinn from three graduato students qualities of municipal water who had never had a blood supplies and deaths from con transit sion. This helps make genita) abnormalities." He be another scientist think they I lieves much cadmium, too, test In advance, so far a* we * PCB, Industrial plasticizer vaporize into the air--off vinyl comes from Industrial air con- art able, every now compound! and Insecticide ingredient, has seat covers, for example to! tmanation. Some scientist or element or technological ` appeared in human fatty tis gum r.p auto windshields: off think more studies may reveal sue. So hat pentachlorophenol, the new "wet look" raincoats' It as "as another mercury." Ho pledgee to determine1 common wood preservative*. and other products. every now chemical's effect PCB'a levels are higher in hu Hexachloraphene--a pow- See CHEMICALS, GC, Cel. 1 HONS 033611 m i G Health Peril of Chemicals Is Growing in America CHEMICAL, Fra G1 la mouse live ceil prepara from five to six pounds in the It excludes pesticides and halted. Dr. Epstein maintains, The FDA--which is also worrying about cadmium--has found that the tranquilizer triflupromazine (commercially) tions. So co seme reports from chemistry. There are : of the gloomy the world of some hopeful 1970s. Production of all chemi cals is expected to increase by 79 per cent The admifustra'.ion's pro posed Toxic Substances Act food additives as covered by other acts "which we know arc grossly deficient-" "There is no requirement for efficacy"--for putting the if a chemical--like a drug since the Kefauvcr reforms-- had to "serve a socially useful purpose." "If not," Epstein wrote le- Vespria has a lethal effect on rats' unborn offspring. It is ones, too. There arc new lots for mutagens, chcmi'mls that would authorize the head of EP.V Ui restrict or bm chemi onus that on the producer to show the chemical is needed centiy in the British journal. Nature, "why introduce it andij bow stfcenias other widely used promazine tranquilizers. U has so far pronounced no cause mutations. More are badly needed. The FDA is seeking funds cals and prescribe standards for tests of new ones. "The act," states Ruckeishaus. and can do what it purports to do. White House conferees on nutrition last year made such accept potential hazards with-1 out general matching bene-1 fits?" ! <ww. ,..>.. 4IMIIUU4i u * efficacy" recommendation. Chemicals called nitrosa- National Center for Toxicolog policy that new chemical sub A pesticide control bill in mines are produced in some ical Research at the Army's stances should be adequately troduced by Sen. Gaylord Nel foods and probably in the former Pine Bluff Arsenal, tested." son (D-Wis.) with Sen. Hubert body hy nitrate and nitrate Ark., biological labs. FDA is Boston's Dr. Kprtcin says of H. Humphrey (D-Mina.) would preservatives in ham, sausage, also struggling with a review the administration proposal: require it. It would weigh ben smoked fish aad other food of more Uian 600 long-used It relies too much on ex efits as shown by specific data products. These preservatives food additives on what it pert boards named by the Na against possible hazards, are under attack because ni- loosely calls it's "generally tional Academy of Sciences-- known and unknown. trosamines are known cancer- recognized ss safe" or GRAB boards lie calls "biased" in Many hazards will inevita producers in animals. Oak- list. several instances--with "no bly remain unknown until new ridge National Laboratory bi The average American's an opportunity for ea iy input by chemicals are put to wide use. ologists have now found that a nual food additive consump scientific and legal representa But much of the rush to ques- nitrosamine causes mutations tion is expected to increase tives of consumer . iewpoints.** ; tionable new ones could be HONS 0 3 3 6 1 2