Document oed4oJBM1ag6dzyVdBV3YM61E

J' INDUSTRIES To: H_ B- I Mn n. rerez-Roig, M.u. INTER OFFICE CORRESPONDENCE September 2, 1977 From: z. G. Bell, Jr. Location: 10 West Subject: Vinyl Chloride angiosarcoma cases world-wide As you can see by the attached conments by Dr. Stafford, ICI. There is pretty good accounting of the Vinyl Chloride Polymerization Angiosarcoma cases except for some of the communists countries. I thought you may wish to be kept informed as to the incidence of Angiosarcoma Cases that are annual*-inn /ale Attachment cc: F. C. Dehn L. B. Grant, M.D. FORM 503.A REV. 6*1*70 SL 028898 August 29, 1977 THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY BENNETT BUILDING 2030 DOW CENTER MIDLAND, MICHIGAN 48640 J. T- Seawell, MCA Zeb Bell, PPG Walt Harris, UNIROYAL M. N. Johnson, MD., BFG Howard Kusnetz, SHELL Gary TerHaar, ETHYL Mayo Smith, AIR PRODUCTS R. N. Wheeler, UNION CARBIDE W. E. Nichols, ORGANIZATION RESOURCES COUNSELORS, INC. John Lawrence, SPI John Stafford, ICI Clark Cooper, MD., EQUITABLE ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Dr. John Stafford of ICI was kind enough to send me this summary and to give me permission to send it to NIOSH. If you can help Dr. Stafford by answering some of his questions or if you find any errors please com municate to me and/or NIOSH soon* Dr. Stafford also asked that I remind you the list is out of date already and will need constant revision. I suspect he is correct since we will be reaping the harvest of the massive exposure of years past. ' //(^ s' -- T. R. Torkelson, Chairman MCA Technical Panel on Vinyl Chloride Research Enclosure mh RECEIVED AllG Hi 1977 .Environmental Affairs SL 028899 August 22, 1977 THE DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY BENNETT BUILDING 2030 DOW CENTER MIDLAND, MICHIGAN 48640 Robert Spirtas, PhD. Division of Surveillance NIOSH Robert A. Taft Laboratories 4676 Columbia Parkway Cincinnati, OH 45206 Dear Dr. Spirtas: I recently received correspondence from Dr. John Stafford of ICI who was kind enough to send information he has collected on angiosarcoma cases associated with vinyl chloride world-wide. Since this information appears to be extremely valuable and also somewhat different from that supplied me March 31, 1977 by Rose Kaminski of your group, I've received Dr. Stafford's permission to relay some tables and comments to your group and to Dr. Johnson. Table A has been updated to include German Case #10 described in a letter to me dated August 5, 1977. Table A AS Cases (Alive & Dead) in PVC Monomer & Polymerization Plants Belgium Canada Czechoslovakia France Germany ' 1 10 2 8 9* - (a) 1 alive (b) NIOSH "oa is not known to CEFIC Italy Japan Norway Sweden UK USA Yugoslavia Alive Dead 2** 1 1 4 1 alive 2*** 2 alive 2 63 4 59 ** *** it Excludes Ge 03 pesticide can filler Excludes It 01 bag extruder Excludes UK 02 which has beenztotally-discountedlin UK Excludes US 14 and 15 so called non-polymerisation cases which 1 suspect are discounted in many US circles. SL 028900 The following sixteen comments concerning these cases are quoted from a letter by Dr. Stafford. 1 Belqium This death in Belgium on 29 June 1976 is well known. I am astonished NIOSH have no record of it. 2 Canada Like NIOSH, I have based my table on the as yet unpublished paper from Laval University. The deaths of so many men born in the 1911-1920 decade and starting work in the 1941-5 war years on VCM is remarkable and depressing. 3 Czechoslovakia 4 France This information has been static for some years. We hear no news from this country at all. I have missed out columns 4 and 5 in your copy. The French industry has been very good in telling me which specific factories had the cases but I do not know whether I am at liberty to pass on the information. I will check on this. France has had a bad year in 1976. NIOSH do not seem to have the 8th French case, a man who died on 30 January 1977. Also NIOSH have France 03 as alive when he died in 1975 (29 June 1975). 5 Germany I have made some minor switches and alterations to bring my table into line with NIOSH. I am uncertain about the classification of Case 03. I am flabbergasted by Case 08 about which I know nothing and about which I will have to question my German friends. 6 Italy 7 Japan The "non-polymerisation" case 06, an "assistant factory chemist," looks like my "polyworker" from Hoeclist. I will have to check this out. I never know what to do with Case 01. From what I can discover the man worked in a relatively unventilated room and suffered high exposures. Maltoni claims credit for remembering man's history and the odd sections he had seen. I have no further news from Japan. I suspect they have more than l.AS/ 8 Norway I have made some small changes to take in NIOSH i . data. 9 Sweden Case 02 was of man who h^d high exposures in VCM production and.hwo, it is remembered, also worked on polymerisation. Case 04 has occured and we await full details. NIOSH do not seem to know 03 or 04. SL 028901 UK USA Yugoslavia Reconciliation ' NIOSH Table 1 The non-polymerisation Case 02 was at a cloth spreading company in Glasgow, Scotland. The man had been exposed to many chemicals. The case is totally discounted in the UK and we have taken it off our lists. I have made some minor corrections to my listings to bring them into line with NIOSH. Is your Case 18 the Charlie Arthur of the Rolling Stone Magazine article which gives slightly different data from NIOSH? Which company and factory has Case 23? (In telephone conversation Dr. Stafford also stated that it is generally understood in Europe that NIOSH Cases 14 & 15 from non-polymerisation workers are not considered to be related to VCM because of Dr. Louis B. Thomas' histological evaluations). No change for some years. No new information. All AS cases by NIOSH 56 cases 7 63 Total myself 63 cases 5 non-polymerisation cases (some dubious) 68* Additional to NIOSH France Sweden Belgium German 08 03 G 04 01 10 PVC Producing Countries without AS Cases So far as I know, there have been no AS Cases in Austria, Finland, Greece, Holland, Portugal, Spain, and Switzerland which produce PVC in Europe. There have been no cases in Australia. I have no data on the USSR or any other part of the World. It would of course be necessary to examine the "no case" countries more closely with relation to date of start-up of manufacture and also build up of scale/numbers exposed at given dates. Looking at the European no case list, I believe the start-up dates of PVC production were-. SL 028902 Austria Spain Holland Finland Switzerland Portugal Greece 1953 1953 1950 1972 1945 1962 recent? Some factories eg Switzerland and Holland have been in action longer than the latency period. There is a lot ofwork to be done to correlate capacity build-up, process and plant nature, plant practice in past etc with incidence of AS but regrettably we still lack data here. Capacity v Mo of AS Cases You made the point that the AS cases in Europe are more numerous than in the USA but that capacity is in step with this. 1 do not know about capa city but if one takes a "normal" year for consumption (ie 1974), North America looks high in AS cases. North America Western Europe PVC Consumption 2.2 m te 3.4 AS Cases to Date 31 26 The Canadian situation does however cause a heavy distortion in the North American situation - if the Canadian cases are deducted however, X still think the US incidence looks high in relation to consumption but this may not be the correct yardstick. Clustering of Results The clustering of AS cases in a few places is a remarkable feature of this whole story. Shawinigan BFG Louisville UCC & Charleston Kemanord Dynamit Nobel French Plant German Plant BFG Avon Lake Goodyear Niagara 10 AS cases 10 4 4 3/4 (4 if one counts the filling operation) 4 2 2 2 42 out of a total of 62i SL 028903 There may be further clusters of 2 in Europe but I am uncertain of them and will not make inspired guesses here. X suspect that the Czechoslovakian and Yugoslavian deaths are also clusters of 2. However, if we could explain the clusters of 10 and 4, we could perhaps gain a lot of useful data on VCM as a human carcinogen. Similarly we could analyz why some plants have had only 1 case so far and why many have had 0. Naturally, people who have had a "cluster" will be sensitive about others probing into their affairs but I do believe that lack of such data has been a dis-service to the whole industry. In the DuPont epidemiological survey on acrylonitrile at their Camden, SC plant, I was struck by their observaiton that the excess cancers occured among employees involved in their start-up operation 1950-52. I wonder how many of our VCM clusters were among employees who were involved in start-up or pilot plant type operations. I believe Dr. M. N. Johnson told us once that Louisville was very much a pilot plant in its early days! (End quote) I hope the above comments by Dr. Stafford will be of use to you. Dr. Stafford has done us a great service by compiling these data. Sincerely, T. R. Torkelson, ScD Corporate Medical cc: Ms. Rose Kaminski, NIOSH M. N. Johnson, M.D., B. F. Goodrich John Stafford, PhD., Health and Environmental Protection Plastics Division Imperial Chemical Ind., Ltd. P.0. Box No. 6 Bessemer Road Welwyn Garden City Hertfordshire AL7 IHD SL 028904