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Ozone loss increases 5% increase in basal cell skin can Synfuels Corp. under cancer risk, report finds cer, and a 4 to 10% increase in squa mous cell skin cancer in light-skinned fire from Congress races because of increased short- In a just-released report, given a wavelength UV light (UV-B) strik The progress of the synthetic fuels qualified approval by the chemical ing Earth. Both are nonmelanoma industry in the United States took a industry, a National Research Coun cancers. step forward last month, but at the cil panel reaffirms the theory of The relationship between sunlight same time may have slid several ozone reduction resulting from emis and malignant melanoma is more steps backwards. Some synfuels proj sions of chiorofluorocarboos (CFCa) confusing. "There am few data im ects are having problems and Con and onihs of nitrogen, loners the plicating UV-B {290 an to 320 am] gress is starting to throw darts at estimate of such a reduction by a as the only responsible wavelength the agency set up to promote syn factor of two to three, and confirms region," and there are patterns in thetic fuels development--the U.S. the relationship between exposure families that must be accounted for, Synthetic Fuels Corp. to ultraviolet light and the occur the panel notes. Problems with The Synfuels Corp. board of di rence of nonmelanoma cancers. sorting out the various threads of rectors has narrowed from 11 to five The report, entitled "Causes & the melanoma puzzle arise from a the field of projects that it will con Effects of Stratospheric Ozone Re lack of animal models or other means sider for price supports and loan duction: An Update," offers no star of determining UV-B's role. guarantees. The five projects all are tling predictions. In fact, it relies Unlike an earlier Environmental considered sufficiently developed heavily on an earlier World Meteo Protection Agency repeat to Congress and financially mature to make a go rological Organization/National Aero on regulations to protect strato at successful operation if they ever nautics & Space Administration spheric ozone, the NRC panel does get to the point of producing fuel. study for its estimate of ozone re not dismiss the mortality rate from The final selection of projects to be duction. It does, however, offer some ponmefatnotna cancels. Although that - exported will be aametime this sum ijnialiring biological findings that rate is very low, the incidence of mer. could help unravel the mystery of nonmelanoma cancer is very high. light-induced cancers. Nonmelanomas usually are not fatal As the WMO/NASA report pre cancers, but the total number of Coal prefects dominate final dicts and the NRC panel reaffirms, deaths from them may be compara current refined models predict a 5 ble to that ten the usually lethal teiarttonr of SyofueJs Corp. to 9% steady-state depletion in total melanoma, the panel says. Catty*. Sponsored by Californit global ozone over the next 100 years New data m mice and corroborat Syntuets Research Oorp., 'Ms project if two CFCs--CF2CI2 and CFCI3 ing data in humans irradiated for --continue to be produced at rates various medical disorders offer tan will be shed in West Pittsburgh, Calif. Using heavy oil as a resource, it is prevalent in 1977. In 1979, NRC had talizing leads toward a better under staled lo produce 5100 barrels per predicted a depletion of 15 to 18%. standing of photocaranogspesiB. The day of fuel. The newer, lower estimate* result i-imnns system deanset the body from improved laboratory measure of potentially toxic or lethal agents, rectonridga. Coal Bquatacdan prot ments of the rates of reactions of WhMimff cancer cells. UV-B, how ect sponsored by Abtend Synthetic hydroxyl radical. The panel was un ever, "inhibiU the destructive abil- Fusts and Bechtel Petotasn. The proj able to assess how increasing atmo ity of the iteMte* system," Setiow ect wU be located in Breckinridge spheric concentrations of oxides of aye. That m, UV^oms mdocm to Ifamuclr/ and is targeted to nitrogen will affect osone reduction. changes in the 'mmwie system that prateos ttw equivalent of 49,800 bbi It does say, however, that "the ef suppress its ability to overcome the to od per day. fects of perturfaetifs by CFCs and rhafbmge of ram es nails Miceohel- NjO are not additive." lengsd with taamss don't die f cam* Although the panel regards the cer mice challenged with tumors and Melhanol Association, this project will match between theory and observa exposed to UV-B do. UV-B disrupts use locally available peat to make the tion as "consistent," it nevertheless their immune response system and equivalent of 1900 bbl of oil per day in notes "uncertainties" and "insuffi they don't reject the tumors. Uqttefc in CreaweN, N.C. ciencies." More research is expected EPA, which asked NRC to study to resolve the discrepancies between the matter, will include the report MLOW. Memphis Light, Gas & Water theory and observation, the panel in its decision-making process, along has been working for years to get Its notes. with tiie WMO/NASA report ana coal gasification-plant built. The unit is Such imperfections in the models 2000 comments recessed from its Oc expentad to generate the equtoaient aefde. BiftiiJ B Satiav. mior tober 1989 Advance Notice of Pro- to $400 btttotoLparday tortowcBy hwphywewtatBroaUmvnliatiend y--The laboratory and chairman ofthe pan of the NRC repeat catalyzing EPA el's Committee on Biological Effects, action toward stricter CFC regula Hampehtre. Joint ventive sponsored says that it is "absolutely certain tion is remote, however. by Koppers Co., Kaneb Services, that ozone depletion leads to in Industry reaction to the report is Northeastern Mutual Life Insurance Co., creases in [short-wavelength] UV cautious support. Joseph M. Steed, and Standard Oil (Ohio). The coal proj light hitting the Earth, which in turn Du Pont chemist and chairman of ect, located in Glltette, Wyo,, will pro results in increases in skin cancers. the Chemical Manufacturers Asso duce more than 19,000 bbl per day of The data are very convincing." ciation's fluorocarbon program, calls gasoline, 914 bbl per day of liquefied The panel estimates thatfor every the report balanced--:,a reasonable petroleum gas, and another 1618 bbl 1% decrease in stratospheric ozone though not sufficiently complete" per day of mixed butanes. there mil be a corresponding 2 to summary of stratospheric science. I <> April 5. 1962 CAEN S A proxy fight for Gulf Resources After hectic weeks of wooing stockhold- get the best deal for shareholders, claim ers and sparring with each other, the ing that the current management has opponents in the battle for control of missed opportunities to redeploy assets Gulf Resources & Chemical gathered in the past. `They have had the opportu anticlimactically for a mere 20 minutes nity to do so for the past five years and in Houston last week to formally close have not. Why should we expect them to out their proxy contest. "You mean I do so now?" ftfllfft the principal behind came all the way here for this," exclaimed one disappointed shareholder, the attempt, British financier Alan E. Clore. In a short time, Clore has who thought he would be witnessing an amassed more than a 15% stake in Gulf action-packed annual meeting. He and Resources stock. other shareholders will have to wait to Both Clore and Gulf Resources waged find out who won until later this week a fierce proxy battle replete with full- when the results of the voting are page newspaper advertisements over the announced at a rescheduled annual past two weeks, but neither side could meeting. The outcome could claim victory coming into the sharehold OnCm% ers meeting. Clore out determine whether the lined several points of company--a small sul contention in his ads-- fur operation just two among them that 21 of decades ago--will con the company's officers tinue as a broad-based and employees have en natural resources con tered into severance cern. Over the past agreements that would year. Gulf Resources provide them with ap has had to contend with proximately $9.4 mil numerous difficulties, lion in benefits should including several take they be removed from over threats and proxy office due to a change in fights. These contests management. have helped focus atten Option* opon. Clore tion on the company's himself has kept a low underlying business profile, however, and weaknesses, which are K--wUi MaftlK the attorney was represented in accentuated by reces for dissident shareholders. Houston last week by sionary downturns in New York attorney the housing and automotive industries Kenneth i. Bialkin. Clore has not said (CW, June 17, 1$81, p. iS). much publicly about his intentions, other Prices dropped* The most conspicuous than to promise outside experts that example of the business problems that he'll review various options if his slate of have harassed Gulf Resources is the directors wins control. But there is con costly writeoff for the shutdown of its siderable conjecture about what is cm his Bunker Hill metals subsidiary. The unit, mind. "He thinks he can make more which produced lead, zinc and silver, had through liquidation than the current been the cause of nettlesome environ management can make keeping the com mental expenses over the years. But pany in tact,' comments one analyst what sealed its fate was the dramatic Meanwhile, the top brass at Gulf drop in metals prices over the past few Resources has not been sitting still. years. The derision to dose the unit led Management has tried to draw attention the company to a loss last year of $78 to Clore'B alien citizenship, the fact that million instead of an operating profit of much of his holdings were purchased nearly $13 million. very recently, and the implication-- Despite the memory of Bunker Hill, lodged in a message to stockholders-- Gulf Resources' Chairman Robert H. that Clore's business record "gives no Allen proclaims bright long-term pros evidence whatsoever of experience or pects for most of the company's other expertise in running a company or busi businesses. These include coal, lithium, ness." industrial explosives, fertilizer and salt, The squabble has led the parties into oil and gas, specialty clays, and engi litigation and brought politicians into neering services. the fray. For example, some congress Parties nrifking to displace Allen and men have maintained that the deal his colleagues challenge their ability to should be blocked because lithium--Gulf Resources claims half the production of the Western World--can be used in the manufacture of atomic weapons. While the proxy fight still seems up in the air, some observers already are bet ting that Allen's crew will receive enough votes to retain control. They point, for instance, to one 11.6% block of votes reportedly cast in favor of current management. Ironically, the block is owned by Placid Oil, a company that in the past has expressed a desire to take over Gulf Resources. Rohm and Haas lights for Its propanll rights Rohm and Haas is trying to weed out competitors in the U.S. propanil market. The company says its patent 3,816,092 gives it a domestic monopoly on the, chemical herbicide--and it's willing to take any challengers to court. In fact, Rohm and Haas has just filed its third^ lawsuit since 1974 to stop other firms from selling propanil to rice farmers in the Texas Gulf Coast and elsewhere in the U.S. In 1974, Rohm and Haas sued Crystal Chemical and several other Houston, Tex., companies for refusing to drop out of the U.S. propanil business. The suit reached a Houston appeals court last fall, and a derision is pending. Mean while, in September, Crystal declared bankruptcy and sold its propanil opera tion to Cumberland Chemical, a new corporation. Rohm and Haas's latest suit, also filed in Houston, names as defendants Cumberland, its four share holders, and its propanil distributors. Rohm and Haas recently prevailed in a similar case tried in New Orleans. ProcMt patent. But these patentinfringement suits are not the garden variety. The propanil molecule itself-- 3,4-dichloropropionanilide--has been de clared unpatentable. Rohm and Haas instead holds a process patent on propsnil's only known use--controlling barn yard grass and other weeds in rice and wheat crops. The company's Stam- and Stampede-brand propanil reportedly represents 80% of the $35-million/year U.S. propanil market Joe C. Eller, former president of two companies named in the 1974 suit and a Cumberland shareholder, admits manu facturing Americe-brand propanil for sale to U.S. rice farmers. But he denies infringing Rohm and Haas's patent. `That patent covers the use of propanil on young, succulent weeds and grass in an established crop," says EUer. "Rice is May 18, 1082/Chamtcai Week IS URL 05090 not established when propanil is ap plied." George W.F. Simmons, chief pat ent officer for Rohm and Haas, says the company amended its patent to include propanil's use as a rice herbicide when that application was discovered. Ned L. Conley, the defendants' attor ney in both of the Houston lawsuits, says he intends to show that Rohm and Haas's patent was "obtained fraudulent ly." But Conley already has failed to prove that Rohm and Haas committed patent misuse when it refused to license the propanil process to his clients. In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court settled that side issue in Rohm and Haas's favor. Jack C. Goldstein, chairman of the American Bar Assn.'s patent section, says the 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling was a "landmark" for compa nies engaged in re search. Goldstein ex- ttmmom to wary, plains that the high court had never before granted a monopoly on an unpatentable product. Propanil, which competes with BASF Wyandotte's Basagran and Rhone-Pou- lenc's Ronstar, is the leading post-emer gent rice herbicide in the U.S. Propanil is sold extensively in the South, but its use on rice crops in California has been restricted, because it has been found to damage adjacent prune orchards. Yet another patent fight Rohm and Haas hopes to gain a still-bigger share of the rice market by registering its highly successful Blazer herbicide for use on that crop. But Blazer's prospects may ultimately be blunted by another patent fight--this one between Rohm and Haas and Rbone-Poulenc--over who owns the diphenyl-ether technology used by both companies in making the broad- leaf herbicide. Rohm and Haas's Stam-tf-4 propanil retails for about $16.50/gal in the Texas rice belt. Fred W. Belledin, the compa ny's Southwest district manager for agricultural chemicals, said in an affida vit filed May 5 that Cumberland's propa nil is underselling Stam by $l-2/gal in Texas and Louisiana. ttallftrilTi says thin differential could cost Rohm and Haas 50% of the Stam market in 1982. Cumberland's Eller says that if he and his co-defendants are pushed out of the propanil market, Rohm and Haas will raise the price to $21/gal to earn an additional $300 mil lion over the next 10 years. Says Eller "Rohm and Haas has more to lose in this lawsuit than we do." IS Owmice Weak/Mey 19,1082 A judicial warning for DES makers Since the Food and Drug Administra tion banned the use of diethylstilbestrol (DES) in 1971, pharmaceutical houses have been flooded with liability suits. DES had been used since 1947 to prevent miscarriages in pregnant women, but reports of vaginal cancer and other prob lems in the children of those women led to the ban. So far, just a few of the lawsuits have been decided against the multitude of pharmaceutical firms that sold DES, because few plaintiffs could document which brand of the drug they took. But last waelc| N<w Ynrlr StAte'a highest court ruled for a nlaintiff bvpti tfiough she didn't know the manufactur er of the DEB her mother took. New York's Court of Appeals ruled that Eli Lilly must pay $500,000 in dam ages to Joyce Bichler, who developed cervical and vaginal cancer in 1971 at age 17. Bidder says her mother took DES during pregnancy. In this first DES award to withstand appeal, the seven- judge panel found the firm liable because it msrfcwtwd thf out first tasting it on nragnant miaa Lilly maintained that its DES was sub jected to rigorous clinical testa Lawyers for Bidder did not try to prove that her mother had taken DES made by Lilly because available medical records do not indicate the brand pre scribed. Instead, they based their case on the theory of concerted action, under which to "paraij*)" are responsible for any of th cnn**- quences. mot to market "Lilly's failure to test DES on pregnant mice before marketing substantially encouraged other DEES manufacturers to do the same," the appeals court decided. Proving that DES makers had expressly agreed on the matter is not necessary, the judges ruled, because "consciously parallel con duct by itself is enough." Under coneert- of-action law, Lilly now has the right to recover part of this award from other DES manufacturers. Lilly says it is weighing its options. TCie ruling against Lilly is expected to strengthen other cases where the spe cific manufacturer cannot be identified. In one such case, the California Supreme Court ruled that Judith Sindell could sue those manufacturers who held the big gest share of the DES market and receive damages from the various DES makers TM th* ** aharp ether other states will recognize market-share liability remains to be seen. But the Lilly ruling does create a precedent for concert-of-action cases, which are easier to press because the defendant need name only one among the many DES makers. "It's very signifi cant," says John Zackey of the Associa tion of Trial Lawyers of America, who says there are more than 1,000 DES cases now pending. "Concert of action is a well-established theory of law--what's new is its application to DES." The potential liability for the pharma ceutical firms that sold DES is huge. In the biggest DES award so far, a Philadel phia district court ordered E.R. Squibb & Co. on Mar. 24 to pay defendant Judith Axler $2.2 million because she claimed she had developed vaginal can cer as a result of her mother's use of the drug. Lawyers were able to marshal evi dence that Axler's mother had used DES made by Squibb. C C 3D New sweeteners ogle o saccharin's markets ' i For years, the labeling on diet sodas and other low-calorie foods that contain sac charin has clearly stated that the prod uct may be "hazardous to your health." Undaunted, weight-conscious Americans blithely continue to consume the artifi cial sweetener. But saccharin has now been added to the Health and Human Services Dept/s list of suspected carci nogens, giving an extra push to the development of saccharin alternatives. Last week. Biospherics (Rockville, Md.) obtained an exclusive license to use a process developed by Boise Cascade (Boise, Ida.) for making "1eft-handed" sugar, an isomer of natural sugar that reportedly is nonfattening. Biospherics, a research, engineering and informationservices firm, hopes to market the chem ical under the trade name Lev-O-Cal if development is successful and the com pany receives Food and Drug Adminis tration approval. Similarly, scientists from the Univer sity of Dayton say they've discovered a process for developing "polymerized sug ar," a linkup of sugar with polyvinyl alcohol. The compound causes neither cavities nor weight gain, they say. Acceptance growing. There appear to be no nonsaccharin substances that have greater short-term potential, however, than aspartame, G.D. Searle's low-calo rie sweetener. In the last few weeks, both General Foods and Borden's Wyler Unit began test marketing new sugarfree powdered drink mixes that contain Searle's aspartame-based NutraSweet.