Document rpnDEBqe1rLXDZ9Y2jeVMywZJ

Th American Council on Science and Health - NEWS & VIEWS - Nov/Dec 1984 PVC: How Toxic Is the Smoke? by Sharon Lynn Campbell 1 HE SMOKE FROM BURNING POLYVINYL CHLORIDE (PVC) CONDUIT IS LITTLE, if any, m re toxic than ordinary wood smoke. Yet a manufacturer of metal conduit has launched a campaign to scare consumers into buying its more expensive product by raising exag gerated concerns about the safety of PVC. Metal vs. PVC ~ PVC conduit is a superior product for many uses. Metal conduit and piping cor rode, are expensive to produce, and require coaly trained labor to install. They must be painted or protected from the elements in some other way, and they can sometimes cause fires via short circuits, although they cannot burn. In contrast, PVC does not cor rode. costs one-third as much as metal con-1 duit t produce, and can be installed cheaply 1 and easily even by do-it-yourselfers. PVC j cannot start fires, and although it can burn, < it does so only so long as a flame is held ! directly to it. 'I PVCY virtues are reflected in the growth ' of its market share, from a mere 9 percent in : the late 1960s to 31 percent in 1980, with projections of 49 percent by 1995. Steel,; which accounted for 68 percent of the con-, duit market in the 1960s, is expected to drop t 43 percent by 1995. In an effort to combat this trend, Allied Tube and Conduit has placed a series of advertisements in trade journals, the Wash ington Post, and other publications, discus- ` sing "Why you might not escape from a ' high-rise fire'* and describing the so-called Intoxicati n Syndrome, supposedly caused 1 by the presence of burning plastics. The advertisements describe in detail the fright ening symptoms suffered by victims of fires in which burning plastics are involved. What they do not mention is that the reac-1 tions they describe will occur when people are exposed to any kind of smoke. They are not specific to PVC. Other Charges Against PVC Other angles to the Allied fear campaign have included charges (hat PVC pipe con taminates water, and that burning plastics are responsible for firefighters' cancer deaths. The claim that PVC pipe contaminates water with vinyl chloride monomer and other carcinogens has long since been dis proves Full regulatory and standards approval have been granted for the use of PVC conduit for watcT. Scare tactics are aimed at PVC conduits. The issue of firefighters' cancer rates is lea clear-cut. It is true that firefighters have j a higher cancer rate than people in many . other occupations. However, the reasons for i this are complex and incompletely under- . stood. There is a total lack of evidence that | burning plastics are responsible for firefigh ters' increased cancer risk. Electrical Code Controversy Allied's campaign against PVC has not j been limited to misleading publicity, j Another action by the company has led to * i lawsuit by Carlon, a manufacturer of thin- j walled PVC electrical conduit, for extreme j irregularities in the way PVC was kept off of ; the list of approved materials in the National Electrical Code (NEC). i The NEC, which is created by the : National Fire Protection Association | (NFPA), is a set of standards which do not by themselves carry the force of law, but j which are almost always adopted by local , governments by reference. This then gives ; them the force of law, and they become part ( of local building codes. Products not per mitted by the NEC thus suffer a serious mar keting setback. The NFPA periodically updates the NEC. Unfortunately, the way this is done is by ( having the NFPA membership vote on pro- j posed changes. This method invites abuse, since NFPA membership is not limited to ; experts in fire protection. A voting member ship can be purchased by anyone, including , you, for S50. As reported in the February 7, 1983 issue of Fortune, in 1980 Allied TUbe and Conduit took advantage of this system by buying memberships for its salespeople and other . employees, and using that voting power to prevent the Carlon product from being approved. Carlon promptly brought suit . against both Allied and the NFPA. The : NFPA has since been dismissed from the suit, which will go to court later this year. N Good Tests Available . " What makes this whole situation alma ludicrous U that no validated, wcU-acccpte method of rating the relative toxidty of var ous burning materials has yet been deve oped. There are at lust six different tes used for this purpose, but each has shor comings and none of them approximates real fire situation. Each fire is a unique s of circumstances, which makes the develoi mem of good tests very difficult. Althoui efforts to develop better tests are current underway, experts in the field general agree that the current teas are of value pt manly as scientific took. They are mad quatc as a basis for regulations. That hasn't mopped the regulators. : Oklahoma, the city of Tulsa has deni approval of PVC conduit. Hating that t dangers of PVC "particularly under f conditions, are well known because of t hazardous, disastrous, death dealing pre ucts of combustion." The lack f a va method of determining whether these co: bustion products are unusually hazardc does not seem to have deterred city offiria In New Mexico, a panel headed by t Director of the state's Construction Indi tries Divisionhas recommended severe tii tations on the use of PVC conduit. In New York .City, PVC conduit mi headlines in 1982, when the Metropolit Transit Authority (MTA) was censured public interest groups for installing it in si way stations. As a result of the highly pul cized allegations that the use of this cond would increase the risk of toxic smoke in lation during a fire, the installation of P tubing in the subways was discontinued, i high cost to taxpayers. Existing PVC c duit is currently being removed by the M' at an additional cost. The state of New York has also taken st toward limiting the use of PVC, des| warnings^from the consultant who select; toxicity test for the stated use that such t< should Dot be used for regulatory purpo New York Secretary of State Gail S. Sc! fer has called the current codes and regi tions inadequate, stating that "neit building codes nor fire regulations seen have taken much account of the danger aspects of plastics." New York State Sen; Israel Ruiz, Jr. has proposed a bill to PVC in wire insulation. After that bilft introduction. Dr. Ro Gottesman, Executive Director of the V TEN 2792 /eJ tf PVC: Toxic Smoke? killed the victims. An ther paper, "Inhalation of Tbxlc Products from Fires," by Merritt M. Birky very tiny fraction f the total gases given off. The doses f benzene that can lead to aplastic anemia are very Urge, and aplastic and Frederic B. Clarke, includes many anemia seldom if ever causes leukemia. - Institute, commented that "the bill claims that PVC emits toxic smoke when it burns but faib to point out that anything that burns, including such natural products as cotton, wool rugs and wood, emits toxic smoke. A press release on the bill is filled with exaggerations and errors of fact and could not stand up under any reasonable level f sdentific scrutiny." The "Evidence'' Against PVC - ACSH took a close look at the scientific evidence which allegedly shows the extreme toxicity of PVC smoke. Most of this evidence comes from three organizations:- Dr. Yves Alarieli research group at the Univer sity of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, the Washington-based Foundation for Fire Safety; and the New York-based Public Interest Sdentific Consulting Service, Inc. N ne of these were able to show us any convindng evidence supporting their conten tions. assumpti ns which are unsupported by evi dence. It presents a table purporting to show a correlation between increased plastics use and the levels of hydrogen cyanide in fire victims* blood. That it no mention of the quantity or type of plastic used (which is important, since some plastics, including PVC, do not give off cyanide when burned). it The research performed by the Foundationfor Fire Safety is weak, andsome other actions by the Foundation suggest that its work is not to be trusted on any level. 33 and the table doesn't even show a steady rise in the levels of both substances from year to Looking for a Fight *( What Is this foundati n? Why was ft founded? Its newsletter states that "the Foundation for Fire Safety was founded in part to help fill the vacuum left by the fed eral government when they pled to discon tinue many of the ongoing fire research and study programs." An interview published in the December 12, 1983 issue of Consumer Newswttkfy offers a different view. In h, Gordon F. Vickery, founder and president of the Foun dation, comments that "a Democrat whok out of work in Washington, DC, and hat a year's lease on a condominium becomes very innovative. I went down and incorporated this foundation, and then looked for spon sors. When you look for money in Washing ton, you have to look for a fight. Nobody gives money for love. The fight between the plastics industry and the steel industry was a natural--Thank God they're fighting!" - . The bulk of the Foundation^ funding comes from the metals industry, including H What makes this whole situa tion almost ludicrous is that no . validated, well-accepted method ofrating the relative toxicity of various-burning materials has yet been developed. 33 year. The paper also fails to indude the nec essary statistical analysis which would tell if the numbers were really related. Hi In New York City, PVC con- ` duit made headlines in 1982, Sdentific Deficiencies . whenShe Metropolitan Transit_ _ ' Other actions by the Foundation have also been scientifically questionable. It brought together a group of experts to develop a priority list of fire problems to be solved, and then proceeded to subject that Authority (MTA) was censured / by public interest groupsfor ( installing it in subway stations. 33 A review of the papers produced by the. list to a popular vote of its not-nccessarily- Alarie group showed severe shortcomings in expert dues-paying members. It proposed many cases, particularly in the work pub lished from 1977 to 1979. The work from 1979 on was somewhat better, but the researchers still made some odd assump tions and failed to include some compari sons that could easily have been done (and would pr bably have shown that PVC isn't quite as bad as they say). The best paper pro duced by thisjroup was published in 1983. Significantly, it refrains from labeling PVC as deadly, as the earlier publications had done. In fact, it is merely a measure of how good a particular test is. Overall, the Alarie groupk research fails to support claims that PVC smoke is unusually toxic. The research performed by the Founda tion for Fire Safety is weak, and some other actions by the Foundation suggest that its work is not to be trusted on any level. TVo of the Foundation^ papers illustrate the problems with its research. In one, an unpublished report on an investigation of the Westchase Hilton fire, the introduction states that the investigation was needed to "establish the role of synthetics in toxic insult,'* an unusual statement, since an unbiased investigation might have revealed that they played no role at all. The paper itself was full of vague impressions, specula an autopsy study that has been characterized by a forensic toxicologist at a major univer sity as needing much work to make it useful in the real world. The Foundation's Dr. Birky advocates having data on fire victims, living and dead, collected via studies done by firefighters with gas chromatographs in fire stations--a method that is unlikely to produce meaning ful results. Gas chromatographs are exceed ingly touchy machines, requiring careful and complicated preparation of both the samples and the instrument. Accredited medical laboratories can do this, but it is doubtful that firefighters would be able to do so without expensive training and equip ment and without hindering the firefighting part of their jobs. The public information published in the Foundation^ newsletter sometimes contains major factual errors. For instance, in one issue. Dr. Birky stated that "the major prod ucts of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) combus tion are hydrogen chloride (HC1) and ben zene. ... Furthermore, exposure to benzene can lead to aplastic anemia which is believed to result in the development of leukemia." This is very frightening to the reader. It is also very wrong. The major products of large contributions from Allied Tlibe and Conduit. The third source of "evidence" condemn ing PVC, the Public Interest Scientific Con sulting Service, Inc., has not produced any high-quality sdentific work. The President, Dr. Deborah N. Wallace, chums t have sev eral active research programs underway, but refused to talk with ACSH about them or anything else. Dr. Wallace is new to the field of PVC toxkity (her background is in envi ronmental biology) and some of ber testi mony on PVC issues seems to reflect an incomplete knowledge of the subject. Many of her conclusions about causes of death have been based on superficial evidence. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has described her study of firefighters' cancer as "not epidemiologically sound, and the conclusions could not be supported by the data."* Unfortunately for the consumer, a naive press has given heavy publidty to the scare stories about PVC smoke without looking closely at the likdy motivations of thos igenerating the stories, or at the results research on PVC by other sdentists. Lets take a look at what these other sources have tions and unexplained contradictions, all of which "supported" the thesis that plastics T<='J ^2,ISi PVC combustion are carbon monoxide (CO) and HCI, with benzene being only a NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation Report 180- ,55-776r'EN 2793 I say about the Mfety of PVC. Other Evidence Neutral on PVC Hazard There have been few papers published in the scientific literature on PVC toxicity. What information there is indicates that while PVC smoke is toxic, no one has been able to show that it is more dangerous than wood smoke, or that in a Are situation, PVC smoke is a significant factor in the death rate. Would restricting the use of plastics in general or PVC in particular have an effect n the Are death rate? International com parisons indicate that this is unlikely. Mod ern Plastics reported in its March 1982 issue that "vinyl and other plastics account for about 70 percent of electrical pipe and tub ing (including electrical conduit) used in construction in Sweden compared with only eight percent In the U.S., yet official Swed death prevention by drawing unwarranted ish Are statistics show that the death rate attention to the t xicity f PVC smoke. | attributable to Ares is far lower than it Is In the U.S. In Japan, which used more plastics in its buildings and where Are hazards gener ally are much greater, the seeming paradox is Sharon Campbell, M.A., Is a Research ! Associate with ACSH. that per capita Are losses are a fraction of ours." All in all, the evidence fails to show that PVC Is any extraordinary hazard in Are situ- , ations. The U.S. has one of the highest Are ' death rates among the industrialized nations, and research and prevention efforts | should be concentrating on the factors ' which will help to prevent Arc deaths. Yet it appears that Allied TUbe and Conduit, in protecting its own economic interests, has diverted us from the really key factors in Are PVC doe* not corrode, costs one-third as much as metal conduit to produce, ind can be Installed cheaply and easily even by do-it-yoursclfert. (Photo by J. Jones) ACSH Newt a Views Nov/Dec 19*4 <//; TEN 2794