Document gbbQXE5LmnGgyv4yb7nv6KmoJ

FILE NAME: Neighborhood Exposures (NE) DATE: 1961 DOC#: NE026 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION: Book Excerpt - Environmental Health A R C H I V E S OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH PREVENTIVE MEDICINE -- OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE -- AEROSPACE MEDICINE VOLUME 3 J uly through D ecember, 1961 AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Publication 37 Health Progress in an Asbestos Textile W orks JERRY MITCHEU. CHARLOTTE, S.C. Asbestos textile, a doth made from a fibrous mineral, is fascinating; to almost everyone. Made in China before Marco Polo and used for wicks for the "eternal fires" in Grecian and heathen temples, its resistance to fire has produced wonder and even awe for centuries. Few people know the extent to which their safety and even their lives depend on this fire- and heat-resistant textile. It touches their lives in heaters and ironing cords, in heating pads, or the element around which the glowing wires are wound in electric heaters. It covers ironing boards; it forms the insulation on the wire in the kitchen range. A small tube may be on the carburetor of automobiles or the small thread that ties the mantle on the gasoline hunting lantern. The extent to which it is used on ships and submarines of the U.S. Navy and on air planes constantly involved in defense is seldom suspected. Asbestos is an integral Submitted for publication April 3, 1961. Manager, Charlotte Works, Thermoiil Division, H. K. Porter Company, Inc. part of American industry and of national defense. Glass products, cherrv red from molds, are carried on asbestos belts to an nealing lehrs, where the temperature is gradually lowered to prevent checking or warping. This might include automobile headlights or television tubes. The coat of a steel worker made from asbestos may pro tect him from molten metal splashes; gloves made from asbestos were used in the last war to handle shell cases from antiaircraft guns. Cut asbestos dust can be a killer, and, in the manufacturing processes of asbestos textiles, it has been deadly in the past. Imagine a small asbestos textile plant in 1936. employing 175 to 200 persons, sud denly finding that possibly one-half the work force was affected to some degree bv asbestusis. Many men were known to be in the first and second stages, and some, pos sibly, even in the third stage. At the same time, surrounding property owners were entermg suits for damage claimed as the resul of air pollution. All this was attended A? 38 ARCHIVES o r ENVIRONMENTAL h e a l t h T able 1.-- Dust Counts from Records o f North Carolina State Board o f Health, January, 1936 Samples Million Particles Per Cu. Ft. of Air Location St 62.? Small card room 86 139.0 Iiack of cards In small room 87 13S.0 Back-of cards in small room 90 94.5 Screened exposure (fly willow wind. open place, draughty) 118 53.S Cotton picker 123 210.0 Stock bin (closed quarters, exhausted, but very dusty) 124 167.4 Same as 123 190 120.0 D ry weaving, u n it No. 8 worst loom; started especially for sampling; many asbestos fibers noted 192 45.0 D ry weaving, unit No. 8 next to No. 8 running 23S 4S.5 D ry weaving around loom No. 2S3 240 16.8 D ry weaving around loom No. 4 T able 2.--Latest Dust Counts from Records of North Carolina State Board o f Health, July, 1960 Samples Million Pnrticlos Per Cu. Ft. of Air Location 1,354 0.4 General atmosphere at stock condenser- one man loading carts 1,355 1,356 1,357 0.7 General atmosphere around batch-mix ing machines 0.9 Exposure of one man tending sargent cleaner, condenser at reclaim 0.7 General atmosphere at electrical roving cards Nos. 30-34 1.35S 2.9 General atmosphere around lap cards Nos! 21-26 1,359 0.6 General atmosphere a t cards Nos. IS, 19, 20, 27, 28, i 29 1,360 1.3 General atmosphere at cards Nos. 6-12 with the newspaper publicity that might be expected to accompany such disclosures. Dust controls were very, very meager, and it was accepted as part of "holding a job" that operators would work in a room so dust-laden that, at times, it was not possible to see to the other end of the row of machines or to recognize fellow employees at that distance. Jobs were important, and the hazards were largely accepted for the sake of dependent families. Welfare pay ments were not a part of the way of life be fore the thirties. Turning the dust which may have been sucked out by the few fans into the open air, to be carried by the prevailing southerly breezes into the nearby homes, was also accepted as part of the price for having industries providing payrolls. Homes also were as close as possible to the mills. Records of the company which became the Charlotte Works of H. K. Dorter Company, Inc. 22 years later are not availa ble, but what actually did happen may have roughtlv compared with such a situation as outlined above. The difference would be in degree and in the vividness of the story telling of the narrators. In the year 1936, the North Carolina State Board of Health set up a procedure for x-ray 1,361 1,362 1,363 1.364 1,366 1,367 1,308 1,369 1,370 1,371 0.8 Genera! atmosphere Nos. 1-5, 13-15, 3, & 5 not in operation 0.4 General atmosphere around spinning machines Ncs. 13-24; Nos. 15 & 20 not in operation 2.S General atmosphere around Nos. 1-12 winding machines 0.3 General atmosphere at spinning frames Nos. 7-12; No. 12 being doffed for sample 1.2 Exposure of one man tending cloth looms No. 37 (wet) and No. 39 (dry) 3.1 General atmosphere along aisle by cloth looms NOS. 36, 38, 40, 42, 44 46. 48; Nos. 44 & 3S not in operation 0.7 General atmosphere along aisle by tape looms Nos. 17, IS, 19, A 20 1.9 Operator's exposure of No. 4-W3 auto matic cloth loom (dry) 4.6 General atmosphere along aisle between Nos. 29 & 30 tape looms; No. 29 had wet warp, dry fill, and local exhaust; No. 30 all wet, no exhaust 1.6 General atmosphere along aisle of looms Nos. l, 34, 35, tfc 54 in the basement; No. 5 not in operation; Nos. l fc 54 all wet; No. 34 dry fill, wet warp and medical examinations of employees in North Carolina engaged in the mining of granite and mica, carving tombstones, work ing in aggregate plants, or working with asbestos. The procedure was expanded to include issuing work cards to employees in HEALTH IN ASEF.STOS TEXTILE. WORKS 39 Fig. 1.--View of the card room showing dust hoods and pipes. Department air con ditioned. Temperature maintained at 7S F. Relative humidity held between 35'9o and 40% while 80,000 cu. ft. of air per minute is being filtered. A ir in this room circulated com pletely 6 times per hr. these trades or withholding' cards where circumstances dictated that the issuance of work cards was not advisable. The number of asbestos textile plants has always been small, and this is still true today. This plant has increasingly represent ed a very substantial segment of this vitally necessary industry. Today the Charlotte Works of the Thermoid Division of H. K. Porter, Inc., with modern equipment and employing more than 400 persons, is one of the largest producers of asbestos textiles in the United States or, in fact, in the world. The threshold limit of 5,000,000 particles per cubic foot must have seemed utterly unattainable when the North Carolina State Board of Health records showed such dust counts as those given in Table 1, taken in January, 1936. These are extremes, of course, but few figures were within the 5,000,000 considered the threshold limit. These compare with the latest dust counts of the North Carolina State Board of Health, taken in July, 1960 (Table 2). Much credit is due the insurance carrier who took the risk in 1936 and the North Carolina State Board of Health for the institution of corrective measures beginning in 1936. These have been carried on rigor ously. The program led to the statement by Governor Hodges in his address to the 1958 Governor's Conference on Occupational Health in Chapel Ilill: "Going back a few years great progress has been made in the fight against the two main dust diseases in Nortlt Carolina--silicosis and asbestosis. The latter one has been almost licked and M itchell 15 4.-'Vv.V' i S if . J v .*&'* V. mm: i'JPh-4'M t* v;^vi: :& j - V'. I *sp / ,, ;rm x.ym .w"V.i'>;f-*dt'a. ;;r,i :?A: 1?..?> >W? Ay i i ,lii vV i,-.-? $*{ .* *( -4 m iA i.T i the inch reduced. 'f h c : of 25 \ conditior ployees visits of Carolina as routii dust cou Shortl unit, eir. Carolina card cert and slati to work to worke doctor, \v the 14X selves, m ttife ' YtSC/'>.>' S- * ` feS P t li | i K v'; v'i.?.4'1 '. vi .i, 'V.V'v''ii-ivi>-. ; *i-fsV-t ` 'iVs-M- r? vMSwM* T`i;i. 2. Completely automatic fiber-blending line, showing air suctions to each (him- injr jan. * * Fig. 3.--Automatic cloth loom, showing exhaust hood .3 ggS3**fl C-h fe3*<6; K f e w S s d lC '" S^ *irK r _ --- v sa stt V*****''> 3i^hV,y*v*** rs/tW?:!' i>.<. v i" -* * r ,.-.-> a - ;\ ii i^sa.A.kw ftjnrsj iAV.: r ' `J?C V ;^ . m p S M y s y m 3 H ;- ^'vC :& . .< . '`rp'''. '* RKfl lW _ . ; j .' t t * . . ' ' . , . w i ' . . . " * .< r * !.? v C i i - X t . T i .J * ' (V -f ^$7Vli y y \ ui| M il,hell HEALTH IX ASBESTOS TEXTILE WORKS 41 the incidence of silicosis lias been greatly reduced.'' The North Carolina working conditions of 25 years ago have given way to air conditioning and atmospheric controls. Em ployees give little thought to the periodic visits of the mobile x-ray unit of the North Carolina Slate Board of Health, and accept as routine the regular dust collecting and dust counting procedures of engineers. Shortly after the annual visit of the x-ray unit, employees receive from the North Carolina Department of Health a work card certifying to the state of their health and stating that they may safely continue to work in the industry. This means more to workers than the statement of our own doctor, who freely discusses with employees the 14X17 chest x-ray pictures we, our selves, make. This is an outside assurance with the authority of the State Board of 1balth of North Carolina. Under the system exercised by the North Carolina State Board of Health the occur rence of any lung injury would be quickly detected, and an individual with asbestosis, even in the first stages, would be refused a work card. Compensation for even this degree of injury is equally as certain. A by-product, but equally important to the health and well-being of our employees, is the detection of other health problems which come to light in the examinatons. All of this has resulted in our employees receiving a degree of medical attention above average. Medical attention and advice should be, and we believe is, free of suspicion of deception in self-interest. Jerry Mitchell. Charlotte Works, Thermoid Di vision, H. K. P orter Company, Inc., P.O. Box 10516, Charlotte, N.C. Mitchell 47