Document gD76qVKZ0MDkoZ8BZZK5pLrXe

south charleston plant UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION CHEMICALS AND PLASTICS P.O. BOX 8004, SOUTH CHARLESTON, W VA 25303 August 24, 1977 AUG 2 9 mf Dr. T. R. Torkelson Dow Chemical Company 2030 Dow Center Midland, Michigan 48640 Subject: Equitable Environmental Health, Inc. Epidemiological Study of Vinyl Chloride Workers Dear Dr. Torkelson: I have reviewed the subject report and have the following commen ts: 1. The report in general is much improved over the previous draft. The summary and conclusions section is poor in that ' it still remains too preoccupied with past reports. The pri mary reference to the first report should be we have increased the number of person years by over fifty percent and instead of seeing outstanding peaks in the SMR's for some causes there has actually been a peak reduction. 2. Vinyl chloride related disease has certainly not reached y epidemic levels in the industry if after a study of this magni tude the strongest statement is that there is still support for the hypothesis that vinyl chloride is a weak general carcinogen. 3. The most apparent conclusion is that epidemiology as pre sently practiced is too gross a tool to pinpoint a vinyl chloride problem with any certainty. Does the loss of 36 deaths from all / other causes classification and the gain of 20 in all malignancies indicate a problem or does it indicate that medicine is now doing a better job in determining the cause of death assuming an overall SMR of 89. 4. The second paragraph on Page 6 seems to work very hard at / being thoroughly confusing, particularly the first sentence. This should be clarified. CMA 009244 Letter to Dr. Torkelson August 24, 1977 Page Two 5. The allocation of the missing 38 death certificates to other known causes instead of simply showing it as an unknown may be common practice but the least Equitable Environmental Health, Inc, should do is to stress that all SMR's are con servative values. The odds that a death caused by a neoplasm is untraceable are poor as compared to being run over by an automobile in Washington. In general, the summary and conclusions should accentuate the positive, discuss the in between and not try so hard to accen tuate the negative. I am for winding up this study quickly even if we have to accept the report as is. Very truly yours, R. N. Wheeler, Jr. cc: Dr. Z B. Bell Dr. W D. Harris Dr. M N. Johnson Mr. H L. Kusnetz Dr. W M. Smith Dr. J T. Seawell^ RNWJr./pm CilA 009245