Document peOOvxaDqgb13wDomNdmMn8JE

Monsanto Monsanto Company 8 0 0 N. Lindbergh Boule va rd St. Louis, M issouri 63167 Phone: (314) 6 9 4 - 1 0 0 0 January 5, 1983 DEPARTMENT OF M EDIOSE a ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Dr. Marilyn Fingerhut NIOSH Robert A. Taft Laboratories 4676 Columbia Parkway Cincinnati, Ohio 45226 Dear Marilyn: Enclosed is a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on soft tissue sarcomas that I mentioned on the phone. Although it generated the kind of nervousness that publicity tends to engender, plus phone calls from several places like Nitro, I really can't quarrel with the factual content. My name was mentioned, but not Ralph Cook's, because the story was written for local consumption. These days you can sell more newspapers here with dioxins than you can with sex. Yours sincerely, an Enclosure William R. Gaffey, Ph.D. Manager, Epidemiology % 0 K) 4499 3y W illiam rV ^ivogal * '*] . 'ost-Oispatch Washington Bur*. ' WASHINGTON -- A rare form >f cancer has. shown up in an inusually high percentage' of. workers at Monsanto Co. and Dow Chemical Co. who were exposed to ioxin. Included are two workers rom the Sc. Louis area. - The number of workers who eveloped rare soft-tissue cancers s small -- two at a Dow plant at lidland, Mich.; two or three at the lonsanto plant in Nitro, W.Va.; nd two- at -Monsanto's plant in auget, IlLJaSt-Clair County- - ` Because the type of tumor is so n u s u a L.-lSC i en t is lL ^ a r e J FROM PAGE ONE -. - i'*v....* .. r .. * : - . ' one of the stricken workers at temporarily changed the way it m| the plant in Nitro was exposed to the herbicide in 19&4. . dioxin. Scientists at Dow and Monsanto s The percentage of soft-tissue in interviews that the soft-tis cancers was discovered by scientists at cancers deserved additional attent the National Institute of Occupational But they said that some of the incide Safety and Health. The scientists are reported in the letters to Lancet she compiling a national registry of be discounted. workers exposed to dioxin. William Gaffey, manager The researchers studied deaths epidemiology at Monsanto, said it 'among two groups of workers from. highly unlikely that the maintenaj investigating whether the cases Dow and two groups from Monsanto. worker at the plant in Nitro had 1> may be among the first pieces of The Dow workers had been exposed to exposed to dioxin. The worker hat medical evidence that dioxin can dioxin while manufacturing the clerical job for all but a few months cause cancer in humans. herbicide 2,4,5-T and those at Monsanto ' the time that the herbicide v The scientists emphasize that * while making other substances. manufactured by Monsanto, he said. more study is needed to prove or The scientists reported in a letter to And Gaffey also doubted whetl disprove the link. They also note Lancet, 3 British medical journal, in David Cluck's cancer could hi that, overall, no more cancers - January 1981 that three of the 10b developed as a result of exposure were found among workers workers who had died had suffered dioxin. The son's first contact with exposed to dioxin than what would from soft-tissue cancers. * chemical would have- been only t be expected from any similar-size That represented 2.9 percent of the years before his death. Norma! group. . . . deaths in the groups. This contrasts ..cancer takes many years --20 to 30 Industry scientists generally with 0.07 percent of the deaths from to develop, Gaffey said. agree that the finding on soft- soft-tissue cancers in the general Gaffey says that the excess of si tissue cancers may be significant population., -r tissue cancers deserves study. But but question some details of the The N a tio n a l I n s t i t u te of consultant for Monsanto who 1 study. They also dispute whether Occupational Safety and Health report studied the workers involved in the 1 See DIOXIN, Pag-A was followed by reports of other soft- accident at Nitro said he saw tissue cancers among chemical significance in the national institut workers. A Dow scientist reported to findings. Lancet in March 1981 that a worker at The consultant, D r.. Raymo Dow had a similar cancer. And two - Suskind, said in a telephone intervi doctors who studied workers at that the soft-tissue cancers in the D Monsanto's plant in Nitro found that a a n d . Monsanto workers were maintenance worker had died of a soft- . different that they would not re; tissue cancer. . ' from thesamecause. - - " - Finally, in July 1981, Dr. Frank E. "' That is particularly true, -1 Johnson of the surgery department of < Suskind says, of the cancer i! St. Louis University Medical Center, developed in one of the men he studi reported a rare case where a father and -- a worker Cthe Nitro plant. ` . son working at Monsanto's plant a t . He said that a pathologist w Sauget had developed soft-tissue studied the case for him said that cancer. - ' ' !>.* cancer could not have resulted from The son, David Cluck of Belleville, same cause as the other soft-tis: 111., died of cancer in 1980 at age 33. His, cancers noted in the national institut father/' Elmer Cluck, lives outside study. ;* > ' - ; * ' Edwardsville, 111. He is confined to a Dr. Suskind's`-own study of i wheelchair. 1 V workers at Nitro has found no increai In an editorial in May 1982, Lancet . amount of cancer. Dr. Suskind summarized the findings and called director of the University of Cincinn them disturbing. It noted that earlier College of Medicine's Institute Swedish studies had shown an elevated Environmental Health. --- number of soft-tissue cancers among Philip Landrigan, director ol t Swedish lumberjacks exposed to division ol surveillance: and ft herbicides. But the publication stressed ; studies at the National Institute the need for more study. *,* . i Occupational Safety and Heal Dioxin is a toxic chemical that can strongly disagreed with Dr. Suskind, cause a severe skin disease called said that his pathologists believed t chloracne. Dioxin has been found to all of the cancers could have resul cause cancer in laboratory mice. By*no- from the same cause. definite link to cancer in humans has He said that Dr. Suskind . v been shown. "making a non-distinction --r ; Dioxin has contaminated the soil in making it after the fact." parts of Missouri. But the workers at . Landrigan says he hopes that Monsanto and Dow who have developed national registry of dioxin workers \ soft-tissue cancers probably were help determine whether the soft-tis. exposed to much larger doses'of the cancers are related to dioxinexposur chemical than Missouri residents who The results will have lit live at or near dioxin-contaminated regulatory impact, because f sites. - American workers are exposed For example, 121 Monsanto workers dioxin. were exposed to high levels of dioxin in The Environmental Protect an accident in 1949 at the plant in Nitro Agency ha> banned the'manufacture in which a section of piping was blown 2,`1,5-T herbicide N-cause of rotenti: away by a runaway chemical reaction. adverse health effects. Dioxin is And Gl Dow workers were exposed to u n w a n t e d i m p u r i t y -in t high levels of dioxin wh*n the company manufacturing of th- h-rbicide.