Document bk1kmeK44eejzkmD5DwdjjL1

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, THundsy, June 6,1972 VOL LI I NO. 168 Harry Bailey is on* sms wHik^afU--yto find much solace in the new standards. Mr. Bailey isn't an asbestos worker. He's a brick Perilous Particles layer in a Mobil Oil Corp. refinery alongside the Delaware River in Paulsboro, N.J. He has been working at the plant for 33 years, and Tiny Asbestos Fibers every year he has gone to the company medi cal department for a chest X ray. "They never said there was anything wrong Pose a Health Threat with me." says 54-ycar-old Mr. Bailey, and in deed he has thus far developed no outward To Workers and Public 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 asbestosls, a nonmalignant lung . disease, Long Exposure Can Result i Mobil has refused to release his medical rec ords to the New York doctors. Mr. Bailey says. In Lung Disease, Cancer; The company declines to comment on the mat ter.) Industry Seeks Solutions First Scarring, Then Complications Asbestcsis begins with X-ray evidence of scarring like that found in Mr. Bailey's lnags. As the disease progresses, the lungs stiffen and `The Bodies Are in the Street' breathing becomes difficult. The heart has to work harder and can become enlarged. Ulti mately. death may be caused by heart attack By Barry Nf.wma.n Sta// Reporter o f Thi Wall Stssit Jovrkai, NEW YORK --At Joseph Marino's gas sta tion on the fringe on Manhattan's Spanish Har lem. the proven method of cleaning an old brake assembly goes like this: Pull off the wheel, aim an air hose at the exposed parts and blow the dust out. A cloud of brown dust invariably flits right into' the mechanics' faces, says Mr. Marino. But it doesn't bother them "We got masks and or .suffocation. . The mineral can also cause lung cancer--bs fact asbestos can cause cancer just about any place ir. the body if particles are somehow in gested. The ability of the sharp, tiny particles to penetrate the lung once breathed in has pro duced a high incidence of cancer in the mem brane surrounding the lung, a disease celled mesothelioma. In the general populace, it causes one in 10,000 deaths. ^3f 632 besto^ workers being studied by Dr. everything." Mr. Marino shrugs. "The guys ^"TT!erTuW"?efinery, where Mr. Bailey don't use them. What the hell." works, like all high-heat factories in the oil and What the mechanics don't seem to know- chemical industries, uses asbestos far insula like thousands of other mechanics--is that the tion. Mr. Bailey works with insulation workers brown dust is dangerous. Brake linings are inside the furnaces, ripping put soft brick. made of asbestos. And if a mechanic breathes "There's asbestos and brick dust and a lot of in enough dust from the worn-out linings it sulphur, too," he says. "We complained about could eventually kill him. the dust and dirt. Nothing is done to keep it The lethal quality of tiny, indestructible as down. The fans make it worse, end you can't bestos fibers that lodge In the lung is well wet it because of the heat in the bricks. The known. Widely publicized studies by Dr. Irving company bought new respirators, but under the Selikoff of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine conditions they clog in 16 minutes." lead him to predict that of the roughly 220.000; Tr. y rhrrqA be asbestos industry workers today, about 95,000 i there are"': a.-.v will die unnecessarily of occupational cancer. ' ji.ia wren we msulauon worsen "In the next 10 to 15 years we will enter the as-' soTTfSSSffK sheets outside the room, or mix bestos cancer era." says Dr. Selikofl. "This| is cne of the great disasters of our time." 1 Hazards for Others, Too The asbestos industry is well aware of the problem and is taking action to combat it. though critics say the steps aren't as drastic as the situation demands. But asbestos Industry cement in a wheelbarrow, "anybody can get the dust." Company Disagrees Mobil disagrees with the description of working conditions. In response to a query, the company issued this statement: "We have no problems at the Paulsboro refinery concerning the use of materials containing asbestos. We workers aren't the only ones who might fall use very little of such materia}, and what we prey to the lung cancers and other diseases do use is used under strictly controlled condi caused by the mineral's irritating fibers. It's tions. Recently the Occupational Safety cad likely that millions of workers in other indus Health Administration carried out an extensive tries using asbestos fibers could be affected, as and thorough inspection of the entire Paulsboro well as ordinary people who have come into refinery. No violations were found in the contact with asbestos In the atmosphere. plant's handling of asbestos materials.'' Perhaps the most tragic fact is that for Mr. Bailey's union, the Oil. Chemical and those who have already been rufficiently ex Atomic Workers, is protesting that Inspection. posed. changes m procedures and standards of Steven Wodka. a union health and aafety spe asbestos use--including a new set announced cialist, says little attention was' paid to health dvesterday by the Department of Labor--are esmngless. It 'akev.-ia nr-.1 as " after the firs' -r violations. And he complains that after a weak of accompanying the Inspectors, the company Inexplicably "had me kicked out of the plant." unUl"- h"w will Mobil declines comment on Mr. Wodka's iraSOTTTWrTfPeTlect. but not for dvezoes. charge. c 000280 Perilous Particles: Tiny Fibers Of Asbestos Pose a Health Threat Oil refineries ire by no mean* Ute 'only, Afraid of a Checkup place* where asbestos turns up. The versatile Among construction workers outside the essubstance is a fireproof binder and insulator inj bestoa trades--virtually all of whom are ex thousands of products, including such things as posed to asbestos whether they work with it di plastics, shingles, paper and pipes. In most of rectly or not--concern remains relatively low. these, the asbestos is harmless to users. But, Jacob Novak, business manager of the Asbes- dependtng on how it's added to the products.(tos Worker* Union local in New York, say* he asbestos can pose a threat to workers in the] has tried without success, for instance, to in factories where the products are made. duce a group of plasterers to have checkups. Until six months ago, for instance, asbestos! "Some of these people don't want to face a free was being used as an antlleak ingredient inj X ray because they're afraid of what they Prestone antifreeze, made by Union Carbide might hear," says Mr. Novak, a 48-year vet Corp. At a Carteret, N.J., plant, run for Union eran of the asbestos trades, who had a nonma- Carbide by General American Transportation, lignant tumor removed from a lung last winter. the asbestos would arrive in paper sacks. Anxiety in the demolition Industry also Workers would cut the bags open with knives seems minims], "We don't have a dust prob and feed the powdery white asbestos into tanks lem in demolition," says Leonard Kapy, vice of antifreeze, says James Irving, a fire and president of Wrecking Corp. of America, one of safety engineer who has worked in the plant for 22 years. "They'd wear face masks, but no protective clothing," Mr. Irving says, "and the blowers in the room where they worked would send the dust out to where others were working. Then they'd pile up the bags ouuide the building and a crew would pick them up and throw them onto the truck, raising a big cloud of dust." Asbestos was removed from the Prestone formula late last year. Mr. Irving says the change took piace after the Oil, Chemical and Atomic workers made an issue of it. Union the largest demolition companies in the coun try. "Some people think you can take down a building without dust," he says with s laugh. As for asbestos, Mr. Kapy isn't worried: "I know fellas who have laid asbestos pipe for years, and there's nothing wrong with them." When working in closed quarters, he says, his men use drop cloths and fans, but they don't wear respirators because "they're too hot and they don't work." Nevertheless, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is preparing regulations ex Carbide denies that. The decision, says Herbert pected 4b be announced this summer that J. Hannigan, the company's technical manager would attempt to impose controls on air pollu of auto products, was based on marketing con tion from demolition operations. These could siderations and "had nothing to do with include requirements for wetting down the health." work areas or the removal of all asbestos be Asbestos also can pose hazards to the ulti fore a building is toppled. The technical prob mate consumers of certain products. Bits of as lem of measuring dust levels, however, "could bestos used in filters for beverage making have toss out the demolition regulation ehtirely," been found in wine and beer, for instance, and says James Krowder, an engineer with the could be dangerous if swallowed. The use of EPA's hazardous pollutants branch. such filters in beverage making seems to have Setting a standard for asbestos concentra been curtailed, but knowledge of the hazard ap tions at work sites has been similarly difficult pears to have had little effect elsewhere, even '< for the fledgling Occupation Safety and Health in medical circles. Asbestos, says a soon-to-be- i Administration, a year-old Department of published study. Is being used in some hospi-1 Labor unit. The reason: nobody knows how tala as a filter for intravenously-fed liquids, much asbestos is dangerous. The asbestos in- giving the particles an entry into the blood dustry, led by Johns-Manviile Corp., the iarg- stream. eat m the field, has fought for a standard allow- The'use of asbestos in fireproof textiles is jng tlve asbestos fibers per cubic centimeter of common. Once in a while, asbestos fiber even ^ in the fsctorlei. But the doctor, at Mount finds its way into ordinary fabrics. Dr. William sjj,ai and eisewhere argue that the only true Nicholson, an associate of Dr Sellkoff at Mount leve, of MbeiWi poilutlon wouId J Mro. Sinai, has a girl's charcoal-colored winter coat A Four yeaT De|a- with red trim hanging in one of hU taborato- The declalon yeaterday wu w ries. It. one of more than 200 000 Imported lmp08e\ flve.nber average, with a maximum years ago. Some of them are*presumably ittni00^*"^*1,10" l" the work rea of I0*11*TM P** being worn. "Give that coat a shake." says Dr. cubl` centimenter at any time. In MTS, the see Nicholson, "and you get 'dust level, a. high ... t0T 4 mo" ,tr n*enj tTW;bar in an asbestos factory." Ilmit' witb 0,8 tour-year delay Intended to give Asbestos workers in the construction Indus- the lndu3try a chance to control the problem, try are perhaps the most sensitive of all work- Tb8 industry says even a two-fiber limit er* to the asbestos hazard. It was the construe-couId hurt 11 economically. J. B. Jobe. Job*a- tion Industry, which uses two-thirds of all as- ManvlUe'a executive vice president, said at bestos products, that was the target of the first hearings in March that it would be "socially ir- wave of antiaabestoa publicity more than four, responsible" to adopt auch stringent regula- years ago. tlons. ton, Chiearo .: *" -" '-t=-:`-T-Tl.1*:11.1 The company operates the largest asbestos in the country-t ManviUe, N..Ti `where. "al^i-'A^^ostnute ngterlan according to a recent Mount Sinai atudy, 40% vfi^SleH, though there's some question being of the workers die of asbeatos-relsted cancer, raised about their safety, too. Corrective steps being taken already, Johns- c 000281 Manvllle maintains, are adequate to deal with the problem without causing a cutback in the plant's production, the lifeblood of the New Jersey town of 15,000. At leant one asbestos fac tory, run by a PPG Industries and Corning Glass Works joint venture in Tyler, Texas, closed last February because of ''profitability and concern over safety," a spokesman says. - tnli nffVlnfT of **stoai: TTIiile the cost of wutio.i al'3TMpj'`iVcr plant or smelter might run into the hundreds of millions, the cost of cleaning up an asbestos operation would be closer to a 10th of that magnitude, accord ing to doctors, engineers and union officiala. Some of the staples of such an operation, al ready in use in many plants, are compara tively Inexpensive closed plastic bags for mix ing cement, vacuum attachments on power saws, drop cloths, dust-suppressant chemicals and battery-powered respirators that blow fil tered air into the user's face to ease discom fort. The new Labor Department standards do. indeed, call for many of these work-practice rules. But while they are unquestionably a needed step toward strict controls. Dr. Selikoff, says, he also says he remains pessimistic. "The potential for surveillance is remote," he ; says, because of the small, underfinanced: staffs of federal and state inspectors. A survey ; recently completed at Mount Sinai of 9,400 as- bestos workers around the country, for in-: stance, showed that in 1970 and 1971 there was ; sly one dust count taken in asbestos plants for > every 20,000 man-days worked. And while he says he appreciates the asbes-; to* industry's expressed interest in solving the problem. Dr. Selikoff is hard-pressed to ex- ' plain the continuing apathy among many work- | ers and managers. "This Isn't just another | scare." he says. "Some people want to see the , bodies in the street before they become con- j cerned. Unfortunately, in this case, the bodies I ore in the street."