Document gEDKE3E98wNyg4OxDvngJrKQG

atfttia MM Tightening up on VCM Tops in chemical industry A "no detectable level" standard for exposure to vinyl chloride monomer Employees' and proprietors' earnings ... more and more in '74 (VCM) in the workplace was recom in chemical industry* mended last week by the Labor Dept's. (Dollar amounts in millions of Occupational Safety and Health Admin istration. The recommendation, set forth as a proposed permanent standard for worker exposure to VCM, is certain to stir up in constant-value `67 dollars) New Jersey Texas New York Projected for '90 $2,652.4 1,800.4 1,697.1 Change from '71 +109.8% +163.7 + 87.1 . .uj s to ,w- S c ;5 Q*>c.> i I dustrial opposition as too expensive to comply with. Illinois Ohio 1,435.6 +129.5 1,311.0 +113.4 ... More sales and services r A spokesman for one major producer, Goodyear, says: "We would be unable to operate under this level, and we doubt Tennessee Pennsylvania 1,243.5 +126.8 1,197.7 +105.8 1 anyone else could." California 1,178.9 +126.7 a Just last month, OSHA issued a 50- Michigan 1,029.2 +107.8 parts-million temporary emergency stan Delaware 827.7 +105.1 dard that came under fire from organized Virginia 777.2 +119.0 labor as too lenient (CW, Mar. 27, p. 12). Indiana 727.8 +138.2 1 The permanent standard is scheduled to North Carolina 666.8 +176.2 ... More capacity take effect June 10, unless it is stalled by Louisiana 655.3 +140.4 l objections and hearings. Missouri 632.2 +138.2 1 In addition to setting an exposure level, South Carolina 598.8 +153.1 the proposed permanent standard would limit manufacture, use and handling of VCM to specified areas of a plant It also West Virginia 471.3 + 81.6 `Wages, salaries. othar labor incoma and proprietors' income. Source: Bureau of Eco would require sensitive monitoring nomic Analysis, U.S. Dept, of Commerce. equipment throughout the workplace to determine minimal worker exposure, continuous-flow and pressure-demand respirators for workers wherever VCM reaches a detectable level, protective clothing for workers in all VCM areas, and annual company-paid medical exam inations of employees. New Mortality Study: Also last week, the Manufacturing Chemists Assn, re ported results of its study of the health Mapping CPI growth Texas, Tennessee and North Carolina will be big gainers of chemical industry operations during the '70s and '80s, a team of Commerce Dept, economists pre dicted last week. Chemical companies also will be stepping up their activities in Louisiana, Missouri and Indiana, the ... More competitive prices ... Prompt deliveries status of workers continually exposed to group believes. VCM for at least a year prior to the end Nationwide, according to the depart of '72. The study, conducted by Taber- ment's newly computed projections of shaw-Cooper Associates, determined the population and personal income, the health condition of 7,128 former (352 of chemical industry's employees and whom were deceased) and present work proprietors will receive $22,549 billion in ers in 35 VCM and polyvinyl chloride '90, up 120.7% from their '71 earnings. plants in the U.S. According to MCA, the The increase reflects a rise in the number findings indicate that the mortality rate for employees exposed to VCM was about 25% less than the rate for the entire U.S. male population and compared fa vorably with the rate in other industries. Meanwhile, the Consumer Product of employees and also a continuing esca lation of salaries and wage rates; but all the projections of income are in constanTvalue '67 dollars. More moderate increases in individ uals' earnings are expected in three other Safety Commission still is attempting to chemical process industries: pulp and pa i I I gather information on aerosol products per, 99.6%; petroleum refining, 53.7%; using VCM as a propellant that may primary metals, 38.1%. ... Unexcelled know how oo co A Nepera4 come under its jurisdiction. Last week, in If the projections are on target, Texas * its latest move, the agency ordered all and Tennessee will each advance one f Chemical Company Inc. J omakers of aerosol household products place among top-ranking states in chem V Subsidiary of ocontaining VCM to produce data on pat ical industry production and adminis ^ Warner-Lambert Company terns of use, toxicity, and period of pro trative operations, and North Carolina Harriman, N.Y. 10926 duction. The agency says it is considering will leapfrog from 16th to 13th place TEL: 914-782-8171 a ban on these products. (table, above). TWX: 5102494847 BFG24826 May 15, 1974 CHEMICAL WEEK 25 Commentary/Social Issues Moving toward control of toxic chemicals After three decades of unprecedented and virtually unregu lated proliferation of new chemical products, American in into osha standards, but mostly due to the agency's lack of information on the thousands of chemicals flooding into the dustry now confronts a frightening fact and a formidable workplace. With a budget of $25.5-million and a staff of 611, question. The fact: Long-term exposure to an unknown niosh must start from scratch in analyzing each. number of chemicals can produce irreparable damage to the "We have this Toxic Substances List of 15,000 chemicals, organs of employees who work with them-and chemicals which will double by next year at the present rate of chem are used in every nook and cranny of U. S. industry, not ical development," says NIOSH Deputy Director Edward J. just the $70-billion, 1-million-worker chemical industry. The Baier. "But when it comes to knowing just how dangerous multifaceted question: How can the dangerous chemicals be each chemical is--let alone how carcinogenic--we just don't identified from among the 10,000 chemicals now in produc have the data. If these products were tested prior to their tion and the eight new chemicals considered for production introduction at the worksite, we might not be surprised by each week? And what will it all cost? any more vinyl chloride incidents.'' Some political answers are already taking shape. Tempo The Toxic Substances Control bill would provide for just rarily stalled behind emergency energy legislation, a Toxic such preproduction testing under rules that could have Substances Control bill that would require company testing mild-to-massive impact on the chemical industry. While of new chemicals under Environmental Protection Agency both the House and Senate versions direct the epa to spec rules awaits action by a Senate-House conference com ify companies' testing methods and to forbid production of mittee. Backed by labor, Representative David Obey (D- new and existing chemicals found to be dangerous, they Wis.) plans to press a House Appropriations subcommittee differ sharply on two crucial points: for more money, both for the National Institute for Occupa The House bill would require testing of only those new tional Safety & Health (niosh) and for the National Insti chemicals listed as potentially dangerous, with results to be tute for Environmental Health Sciences (niehs), to be used reported to the EPA 90 days before production. The Senate specifically for research in petrochemical health hazards. version would require, additionally, that companies notify Whatever the immediate fate of both measures, recalcula the epa of all new chemicals considered for production so tion of the acceptable trade-off between worker health and that it could order testing of suspect chemicals not on the industry growth seems clearly in the cards. The likely result list. EPA says it cannot predict what industry will develop will be higher costs and slower growth. tomorrow and put it on a list today. Industry objects to an Long recognized as a grave risk by occupational health approach that-says John A. Georges, director of environ experts, the problem of "chemical health collapse" moved mental affairs for E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.--"as abruptly from the scientific journals to the daily news sumes every product is dangerous until proven otherwise." papers with the discovery of seven deaths from angiosar The House version would enable the EPA to ban produc coma, a rare liver cancer, among long-time workers on the tion of a chemical only if health hazards could not be cor vinyl chloride operations of three chemical companies, and rected under other federal legislation, such as the Water the diagnosis of noncancerous liver damage in hundreds of Pollution Control Act. The Senate version would leave the workers exposed to the chemical. The Occupational Safety choice of weapons to the epa on the ground that different & Health Administration (OSHA) hastily issued a temporary laws work better for different conditions--for instance, that exposure standard of 50 parts per million (ppm) for the banning a product may be wiser than trying to clean up its 700,000 workers exposed to vinyl chloride, with a permanent toxic sewage, if substitute products are available and clean zero standard due to be proposed this week. The link be up methods are uncertain. Industry argues that this provi tween vinyl chloride and liver damage sion puts too much power into the thus took its place with the links be hands of the epa administrator. tween benzene and leukemia, cadmium and nerve disorders, and a growing list Testing costs run high of other chemical occupational hazards. Chemical companies say that their An Information gap testing costs would rise moderately un der the House bill, but so astronom Theoretically, Congress dealt with ically under the Senate bill that esti this problem back in 1971, when it mates fail them. Union Carbide Corp.'s created osha. Among other tasks, OSHA chemical and plastics group spent was charged with issuing freshly re? searched health standards to replace $900,000 on testing during fiscal 1973 (on sales of $1.67-billion and pretax outdated consensus standards. A 500ppm vinyl chloride exposure level, for example, was still in effect long after most companies had set their own lev els at 200 ppm and Dow Chemical Co. profits of $212-million) and is spending $1.1-million this year. It projects a test ing cost of $1.5-million for 1975, "given a reasonable bill," says Thomas W. Carmody, vice-president of the chem had brought down its standard to 10- to-50 ppm. But nothing much actually changed. Only 15 of 550 projected OSHA health standards Were issued in three years. This was due partly to cautious leadership and cumbersome methods of converting niosh criteria documents Dr. Frederick de Serres: "I teei that 1974 may be the year everything explode*." ical and plastics group. Dow, which spends $8-million annually for testing (on U. S. sales of $1.7-billion and post tax profits of $215.5-millibn), expects "only a modest additional cost" under the House bill, says Chester E. Otis, (continued on page 114) 112 BUSINESS WEEK: May 11. 1974 SOCIAL ISSUES BFG24827 23316002 market, you've lost the money game. As Inflation, devaluation and taxation con tinue the onslaught against your dollar, the question is no longer whether to in vest, but what to invest in. There is a creditable alternative to the stock mar ket. Rare coin investment has consis tently outgained every major form of investment in the last 30 years. While Wall Street crumbled, rare coin values lose 225% in 1972 (Major World Cur rency Report). Complete the coupon below and mail it today and we'll tell >ou about our highly successful Numis matic Investment Plan and our unique NO RISK'' program. Rare coins are cur rently in the midst of its greatest bull market. Crab the Bull by the horns. P ease Send Me Complete Information BW-2 Matt tfm coupon tot NUMISMATIC FUNOINC CORPORATION 400 lenctio Tpkr, Jericho. L.I., N.Y. 11755 Tel S16-I22-9S10 "Call collect any tim" n i Respondents will receive i a FRll copy ol the NFC review | Name j Merest I thy 1 State a BJSINESS WEEK. May U . 1974 Tip1 J Commentary/Social Issues Continued manager of the public issues office. But both decline to guess future testing costs under the Senate bill. For their part, EPA officials poohpooh talk of sky-high costs. Many chemicals would require no testing at all under the Senate bill, says epa leg islative director Gary Baise. Most oth ers would require only the standard 30day toxicity protocol, which measures general effects on two species of ani mals, he says. But tests for suspected carcinogens are something else again, and these are the tests that industry fears the epa may demand for many chemicals. Lifetime animal tests take two years and cost up to $300,000 per chemical, according to the National Cancer Institute. Nobody yet has come up with a quick, cheap, reliable substi tute. The likeliest candidate, in some views, if mutagenesis testing--measur ing the ability to change cells rather than the specific ability to cause cancer (one type of unnatural cell change). Conceivably this could save millions of dollars by weeding out chemicals that might otherwise go the two-year, $300,000 route. Dow and Pfizer, Inc., are studying the technique, and Dr. Frederick de Serres of the niehs, a leading authority in the field, predicts good tests for chemicals within a year. An even tougher bill? But passage of the Toxic Substances Control bill may not wait for the devel opment of quicker, cheaper tests. On the other hand, Congressional failure to pass the bill this session, either be cause time runs out or the conferees re main deadlocked, may produce a bill even less attractive to industry. Senate majority conferees indicate that, rather than compromise further, they will let the current bill die and start again in the next Congress-a postWatergate Congress likely to be friendlier to a tough bill than the present session. The message seems to be that industry must expect a fairly expensive solution to the problem of identifying potential vinyl chlorides, if not this year, then next-and that this, in turn, means that it will be producing fewer products. "The bill will have a hidden cost in new products that will never be devel oped and new uses for old products that will never be explored," says George Hanks, environmental affairs manager for Union Carbide. "Small companies especially will think twice before un dertaking anything that may require extensive testing. They can't afford it." Environmentalists such as Barry Commoner argue that this is good, that the ever-accelerating flood of the past 30 years should be slowed while indus try catches up on its health homework for those chemicals already developed and society decides how many more it can absorb. Taking another tack, labor argues for a tough bill as a means of protecting worker health with minimal economic disruption. Spotting dangers through preproduction testing makes more sense than waiting till after wards, when jobs and investments are at stake, says Sheldon Samuels, direc tor of health, safety, and environmen tal affairs for the afl-CIO's Industrial Union Dept. Potential time bomba Extensive testing may increase costs to consumers as well as producers, la bor spokesmen concede freely. "Safety and health costs are part of the cost of doing business," says IUD SecretaryTreasurer Jacob dayman. "In some cases they will be passed on to the consumer." Although chemical companies take no such placid view of the increased cost of doing business under a Toxic Substances Control bill, their present prospects suggest considerable ability to pay more for health research with out endangering their own economic health. "Resource shortages guarantee an era of incredible growth for chem icals," says Union Carbide's Carmody. "Look at detergents. There's just no way back to soaps based on fats. We need the fat for food now. The same is true for most natural resources." As a result, Carmody says, "I can't imagine a really important product being priced out of the market." Carmody's premise may be tested sooner rather than later. Another vinyl chloride incident would almost cer tainly propel a tough Toxic Substances Control bill out of committee and onto the statute books, and occupational health experts rank the likelihood of such an incident as somewhere be tween possible and probable. Since chemically caused diseases often have latency periods of 10 to 20 years and many chemicals went into production 10 to 20 years ago, time bombs may be ticking away on countless production lines. "I feel," says the NIEHS' Dr. de Serres, "that 1974 may be the year ev erything explodes." BFG24828 SOCIAL ISSUES 23316003