Document mBx5XJGjO3bnwDnkGxMnj6myB

vented tube from each engine blows air at very high pressure and forces gravel away from the engine intake. Other operating problems include temperatures that are 50F to 60F be low zero, 60-mph winds, and total dark ness in December and January in the High Arctic. Engines on airstrip equip ment such as trucks and snowplows are not turned off from Dec. 1 to Mar. 15. Though the regionals, too, face fuel problems, all are predicting revenue in creases this year. They see their big gest growth potential in scheduled pas senger service, although no one is scoffing at the big bucks to be made in hauling drilling equipment-and beer-- to oil teams in the Arctic or to the offagain, on-again $6-billion James Bay hydroelectric project in northwestern PWA ships cattle to the Orient and oil-drilling equipment to the Arctic Quebec. Nordair flies there from .Mon treal, and Quebecair operates cargo- only service. Cattle plane. In the eyes of many indus try observers, Pacific Western is the best run of the regionals. Its fleet con sists of seven Boeing 737s, with three more on order, plus two 727s, two long- range 707s. five Convair 640s. four Her cules jet-nrnn freighter:; and a few flv- ing boats. PWa's operations range from its scheduled passenger services to shipping cattle to the Orient and ex tensive relief work in such places as Ni geria and Bangladesh. Scheduled pas senger services account for roughly 65% of PWa's revenues, charters for about 10%, and cargo services for the remaining 25%. Its cattle plane is typical of pwa's willingness to provide specialized ser vices to meet special needs. A conven tional Boeing 707-320C, the plane can be equipped with either 13 stalls hold ing about 85 1,000-lb. cattle or double tiers of pens that will accommodate a great many more smaller animals. Donald N. Watson, PWA president, says that the plane has carried as many as 700 cattle from Toronto to Athens. The real keys to profits for pwa and the other regionals, however, have been jets and charters. The jets boosted available seat-miles on routes with good load factors, and the char ters gave the carriers the capability to use their aircraft more economically. Keith Miller, executive vice-presi dent of Eastern Provincial Airways, estimates the seat-mile cost on a 109- passenger 737 at 2.2c a mi., compared with 5.5c for each mile on the 41-seat Handley Page Heralds the 737s are re- ipulling, lie in vai\-c cn luau uitiui on the jets is 42%, vs. about S0% on the prop nlanes, "The stimulation of a 737 is very substantial," Miller says. TECHNOLOGY Industry's latest cancer scare The deaths of five workers in ten years seem linked to working on the plastic Federal officials met last week with plastics industry executives in Cleve land and Washington to try' to deter mine whether the industry has un knowingly been exposing some of its 6,500 blue-collar workers to fumes that can lead to a rare form of liver cancer known as angiosarcoma. The focus was on 28 of the 42 plants in the U. S. that make vinyl chloride or use it to produce polyvinyl chloride resin (pvc), one of the most common plastics. The hearings grew out of the deaths of four workers over the last six years at a B. F. Goodrich Chemical Co. plant in Louisville, Ky. They could ultimately bring costly new rules for the pvc in dustry, whose resins are used in such items as pipe, floor tile, phonograph records, and latex wall paints. "Im provements in work practices will probably require a 1UU% increase in the work force," says Walter B. Connolly, Jr., labor counsel for Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., which operates PVC plants in Pottstown, Pa., and Perryville, Md. In any case, the current PVC hulla baloo is certain to spark new demands by organized labor for closer exam ination of the possible long-range ef fects on workers of other industrial chemicals. "The cancer took 15 to 20 years to develop," says one federal epi demiologist. Other chemicals could have similar "latency" periods, he says, so there could be more eruptions in the years ahead. "I hope we're not seeing the beginning of a health collapse." The vinyl chloride case is not the chemical industry's first encounter with OSHA over carcinogenics. Last May the agency' invoked emergency standards for 14 chemicals (B\v-- May 19, 1973). Final rules for these mate rials went into effect last week, though both industry and labor are suing for judicial review. The prospect of new, petrochemical versions of such health time bombs as "black lung" and mercury poisoning, makes plastic industry leaders shudder. And indeed, new data presented at the standing-room-only OSHA hearing by Italian researcher Cesare Maltoni, of Bologna's Institute of Cancer, leave little doubt that vinyl chloride is carcinogenic-at least to rats. He exposed 67 rats to air containing 2bU parts per million of vinyl chloride off and on for 52 weeks. By the end of 127 weeks, Maltoni reported, two had contracted angiosarcoma and nine contracted other forms of cancer. Many chemical industry executives had downgraded the importance of earlier animal test results because the dosages were mas- A solvent that crippled chemical workers Last August, Thomas F. Meade, 22, was stricken with a nerve disease after two years of work at Columbus Coated Fabrics Co., a subsidiary of Borden, Inc., in Columbus, Ohio, that makes vi nyl-coated fabrics for luggage and wall coverings. The disease, diagnosed as peripheral neuropathy, left Meade crippled, and today he wears leg braces. He is the most severely af fected of some 130 workers at the plant who have suffered symptoms of the dis ease. The lesser symptoms include weakness and loss of coordination. When the symptoms became wide spread last summer, state health offi cials tested the nerve responses of the plant's 1,124 employees and told 200 of them to stay home for two months. Many others stayed home, too, out of fear. By December, most employees iinu iciuiiicu, cwiu main nau showed neuropathic symptoms ap peared well again. Meanwhile, Ohio health officials had zeroed in on an ink solvent, methyl butyl ketone, used in applying decora tive patterns, as the most likely culprit. While continuing to monitor the plant's air, they banned the use of MBK. The plant's managers have switched to a substitute, improved ventilation, is sued respirators to print shop workers, and moved lunch areas away from work areas. But Corwin Smith, president of Lo cal 487 of the Textile Workers Union of America, which represents the plant's workers, is not satisfied. He says that 26 members are still out with the dis ease, that eight of them are severely crippled, and that three workers whose condition improved are now sick again. On Feb, 9, the local struck the plant as negotiations collapsed on a new con tract; one of the union demands was a plk/^CX Cil V illHIUlClU,. Smith: "People here don't know whether they will he crippled in the fu ture or not." 100 bUS.NESS WEEK P*oruarV 23. 1974 TECHNOLOGY T000W -22 V t t r r 5. I\ '} i \ ,sive, on the order to 5,000 to 30,000 ppm. iic uuniuaiitrii. i lie cancel' crisis im cue vir ndustry just a month ago. Not,.i unusual number of liver ail ments among the Louisville plant workers, B. F. Goodrich physicians ran blood tests last fall on the 271 workers in the plant's pvc facility and found 55 with apparent liver abnormalities. The company reviewed medical and insur ance records and by Jan. 16 had discov ered three deaths since 1971 that were attributable to angiosarcoma. Federal health officials estimate the annual death toll in the U. S. from this rare form of cancer at only about 20. On Jan. 29 fur ther review by Goodrich turned up a 1968 death (two more cases, includ ing a 1964 death, were identified this week). The company's top management had already decided on public disclo sure. It reported the situ ation to the National In stitute for Occupational Safety & Health and to the Kentucky Labor Dept. It also began notifying employees in all of its vi nyl chloride and pvc oper and it sent a re to the press. "We ]>pm limit recommended since 1972 by the American Conference of Govern- incut iiiuusLi till 11 \ icuiatd. lit Italian researcher Dr. P. L. Viola reported that rats exposed to heavy doses of vinyl chloride developed malignant tumors. Several European chemical companies banded together to support research by Maltoni, and in the U. S., the Manufacturing Chemists Assn, be gan to discuss an industry-wide re search program. A year ago, the MCA set up an animal test program that will not be completed until late 1975. The association also contracted with Tabershaw-Cooper Associates, of Berkeley, nors, Jr., general manager of the Plas tics Div. of Diamond Shamrock Chem- ICdl \^U.t V\ UiCil CMJCjCI \ C3 llictl J111 i 1 L, "there are not enough fumes in the air to smell." Where concentrations are higher, he says, "we have ordered our men to wear gas masks." Vinyl fumes arise partly from leaks in pipes and valves. But another likely source is the polymerization vessels, when they are opened for cleaning and maintenance. XIOSH officials are con centrating now on the polymerization process, but they plan to extend their studies eventually to monomer produc tion, as well as pvc fabrication and even consumer use of PVC products. Since safe limits for vi nyl chloride are unknown, XIOSH is emphasizing safe work practices rather than arbitrary concentra tion limits. Its recommen dations for the Louisville plant, for example, in clude such things as over head cleaning, daily show ers and clothing changes for workers, and ex panded air monitoring. Pinning it down. Goodrich's Louisville plant uses about 50 different chem icals, and there is no proof of a direct link between ---- 1 -V- express our real and liver cancer cases. But serious concern," says XIOSH officials are certain John J. Bell, the com that the link exists, and pany's public affairs direc A B. F. Goodrich safety inspector uses a chemical "sniffer" to check tor, "and yet prevent any whether vinyl chloride fumes are leaking from a polymerizing reactor. the MCa's Johnson con cedes that "vinyl chloride undue panic." is the material of primary XIOSH, which had immediately sent Calif., to check the available death suspicion." Only two other carcinogens, experts to Louisville, held a briefing records of workers at other vinyl arsenic and thorium-232, are proven early last week in Cleveland to tell plants. "So far," says Kenneth John causes of angiosarcoma, and medical management and labor leaders in the son, MCA technical director, "the results records on the four Goodrich workers industry what it knew about the car haven't been subjected to statistical showed no exposure to either. cinogenic effects of vinyl chloride. And analysis." Both XIOSH and industry officials on Friday, many of the same execu To Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, the history- hope, though, that the link is peculiar tives showed up in Washington for the shows that "our approach to the prob- to Goodrich's Louisville plant. Says OSHA hearing. The federal agency will XIOSH Director Marcus M. Key: "We determine whether the situation war NIOSH hopes that the cause still hold to the possibility that the rants'either an emergency standard or is a combination cause could be a combination of two or at least a start on the regular rule- of factors at only one plant making process. three things acting together in the manufacturing process." The attitude of organized labor was lem was, shall I say, leisurely." Seli The Louisville plant is Goodrich's a major concern. Anthony Mazzocchi, koff, director of environmental medi oldest pvc plant and, unlike most legislative director of the Oil, Chemical cine at New York City's Mount Sinai newer plants, is enclosed. It also has a &. Atomic Workers, who attended the School of Medicine, has been a frequent number of older workers on the line. NIOSH briefing, says: "It's apparent critic of industrial health practices, and Some workers may have been affected we're dealing with a carcinogen. We one chemical executive calls his re by an epidemic of hepatitis that swept want to reduce exposure to zero. But mark, made at the OSHA meeting, the city a few years ago. A number of we have a wait-and-see attitude right "hindsight." other rubber and chemical plants, and now." Belatedly or not, some pvc producers their fumes, are located nearby. And V" :le the fatalities at Louisville have been tightening up their oper the plant is one of the few that uses vi- s a shock to the industry, vinyl ations. Goodrich, for example, says it nylidene chloride as a copolymerizing chloride has been suspect for a long had already done, or was doing, most of agent. Rudolph Jaeger, a physiologist time. Some 15 years ago Dow Chemical the things XIOSH recommended after at the Harvard School of Public Health, Co., based on its own studies, adopted visiting the Louisville plant, including told the OSHA meeting that test data an average exposure limit of 50 ppm sticking to a 50-ppm average exposure appear to point to that chemical, too, as for its workers-well below the 200- limit. "At 50 ppm," says Harry Con- a carcinogen. ZOOOIrlZ Z TECHNOLOGY BUSINESSWEEK FeBruary 23. 1974 101 '