Document omZZBYXYLXQGNLbJK0QndoNd7

I f I flZ.0*J /SbfCo/U Joiu?A]/>/- 0-&-7C ' ^ Lung cancer takes toll of workers at chemical company in Philadelphia By WILLARD S, RANDALL and STEPHEN fi. SOLOMON Tim *w*rr At Matty Werynski'i funeral in Au gust of 1969, his widow, Angela, turned to Joe Karcher, one of Werynsld's coworkers who was serving . as a pallbearer. "Why don't you get the bell out of that place?" she sobbed. "The same- thing is going to happen to you." But Karcher, like the others, mostly men with limited skills and little education, stayed on at the Rohm and Hass plant in the Bridesburg section of Philadelphia, piling up the overtime and pursuing the trappings of the good life. "He was a family man," his wife would say later. "He hated the job. He took a correspondence course to get a better job. He got his diploma, but then he got sick." WHEN THEY wheeled Joe karch er into his' last company picnic, friends say, be looked awful, a shell of the 175-pound, physically fit man they knew: And when he died on November 9, 1971, at the age of 37, his buddy -- big, tough, 200-pound Bob Pontious -- softened for a moment, and turn ing to his wife, Marie, with tears in his eyes, murmured, "Maybe Til be next." He WAS next But not the last. For 20 years, the management of Rohm and Haas, a world-wide chemical firm based in Philadel phia, failed to halt the exposure of dozens of employes to a cancerproducing substance, despite its awareness of the deaths of many workers. Workers at the Rohm and Hass plant began dying in 19S5. Fatalities continued through May 1975. At least 54 workers died of respir atory cancer over two decades, ac cording to a year-long investigation. The company acknowledges that '29 of the deaths were due to expo sure to bis-chloro-methyl ether (BCME). By matching medical rec ords, work histories and other docu ments, and through interview's with fellow workers, it has been deter mined that 25 additional respiratory cancer deaths also occurred among workers exposed to BCME. IT WAS ALSO learned that: The company failed to report deaths of workers who died after 1971 of respiratory cancer, despite regulations of the Federal Occupa tional Safety and Health Act AFTER RECEIVING the Hazle ton report, the company says it be gan a four-year $6.5-million pro gram to "button up" the production process and use CME in a closed system. In June 1971, the company was told by Dr. Norton Nelson, a cancer researcher at New York University who bad been conducting inhalatictests on wild rats, that BCME was the most potent carcinogen be had ever tested. Also that year. Dr. William Figu eroa, a pulmonary specialist, becar treating Rohm and Haas work?' Robert Pontious for lung cancer. Alerted by knowledge that oihc workers at the company were dyinof lung cancer, Figueroa tried k collect Information irom Rohm and Haas about workers' exposed 10 BCME, but the company was nu; earned about the information it sup plied, Figueroa said. FIGUEROA THEN decided to base his research on data supplie. by Pontious. He learned that four respiratory cancer deaths tbv had been detected in the compam > X-ray screening project that bera te 1962 were from only 44 men who Dr. Figueroa examines X-ray of lung cancer victim. had been exposed to BCME, a i? cthat had earlier been known only Inspectors from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) who visited the plant be tute chemical, CME, which contains 2 to 8 percent BCME. company executives. The other ;; . men in the project were from oilu parts of the plant where BCME w? - tween 1971 and 1974 were told by IN DECEMBER 1962, the compa not used. the company officials that there ny began X-raying workers at the Figueroa says that if he and ti:c were no serious problems as a re plant In4 order to avoid creating company consultant he assisted r sult of exposure to carcinogens. alarm, the firm included in the tests administering the study that be*:a- On company records for the peri od 1971 to 1974 the company record 125 workers who had not been ex posed to BCME. ed seven deaths -- five fewer than In early 1963, F. Otto Haas, com- found by the Inquirer -- but OSHA p a n y president, persuaded the officials said there was no record of Pennsylvania Manufacturers Asso any deaths having been reported. ciation, a lobby representing indus trialists in the state, to have bills Rohm and Hass lobbied against `introduced in the state legislature in 1962 had been told which 44 mer. had been exposed to BCME, `V. would have turned the spotlight c: Four ta 44 would have been riv nomenal," he said. Figueroa add?: that this was 27 times the norni..- rate as cited by the American Car eer Society. toxic substances legislation that [that would amend the Workmen's Rohm and Haas continues its would have required pre-market 'Compensation Act and the Occupa- million a year ion exchange resi. screening of suspected carcinogens. tional Diseases Act to protect corpo production at its Philadelphia pla< As a member of the Manufactur rate executives from lawsuits by and at plants in Europe and Japan. ing Chemists Association, a Wash their workers or survivors. The ington-based lobby for large chemi bills, signed into law that August, cal firms, the company sought to | were instrumental in helping the discredit tests of BCME on mice i company privately settle claims by and rats that resulted in cancer. In ! the survivors of 27 BCME workers 1973 hearings before the Federal In 1974 and 1975. Standards Advisory Committee on Carcinogens, Dr. Ellington Beavers, a Rohm and Haas vice president, joined industry representatives in arguing that BCME be labelled as an animal but not a human carcino. gen. Rohm and Haas began producing* . BCME in 1948 to be used as an in In 1967, by then aware that 23 workers exposed to BCME had died of respiratory cancer, the company received a report from Hazleton Laboratories in Falls Church, Va. The study showed teat of 50 mice exposed to BCME vapors at a dose of one part per million, 37 or 74 percent had died within 95 days. Of termediate chemical in the produc tion of ion exchange resins, used in purifying water for nuclear power plants, nuclear submarines and wa- 10 mice exposed at what was con sidered an average industrial level of 9.8 parts of BCME for a million parts of air, all died in 10 days. , ter treatment facilities and in re covering uranium from low-grade ' ore. in 1950, production of pure BCME was halted when it was ' found that the chemical was eating away the production kettles. The BFG28914 company then began using a wHt- T