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c ID V, fc o ANTITRUST A Philadelphia Lawyer"; Harold Kohn has pioneered a type of lawsuit that's paying victims, enriching attorneys, and enraging defendants. A Philadelphia antitrust lawyer named Harold E. Kohn feels a heightened sense of anticipation when his telephone rings these days. Any time now the clerk of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Cir cuit in New Orleans may call with the court's decision in a celebrated suit Kohn brought on behalf of thousands of ply wood buyers against nearly all the ply wood manufacturers in the US. In 1978 a federal district court jury found that the defendants had conspired to fix prices by phonying freight charges and weights. If the circuit court and, eventually, the Su preme Court uphold the jury's verdict in all particulars, the three defendants who didn't settle before the trial--GeorgiaPacific, Weyerhaeuser, and Willamette In dustries--would be liable for a treble damage award that Georgia-Pacific says could be as high as $1.5 billion or $2 bil lion. That would make it the largest anti trust class-action penalty in history. For Kohn, victory would be the cap stone of his career as a champion of the plaintiffs' cause in antitrust class actions. It would probably also mean a fee of up to $4 million, depending on how the court evaluates his performance. If Kohn loses, the judge is still likely to award him $1 million to $1.5 million from the $8 mil lion in settlements extracted from the 34 plywood companies that settled before tri al. This would hardly be the first big fee Kohn collected for a case of this sort. In the last ten years his firm has taken in al most $6 million from class-action anti trust cases; in 1980 alone its fees came to $2,406,029. Kohn's comfortable circumstances highlight one of the great charms of anti trust class actions--from the plaintiffs' lawyer's point of view. They also highlight Research associate. Philip Mattera by IRWIN ROSS one of the most controversial aspects of antitrust law--the way class actions favor plaintiffs and their lawyers by threatening a defendant with a staggering burden of damages if he refuses to settle, goes on to defend himself in court, and loses. Under the present rules of the game, de fendants who lose at trial are liable for tre ble damages not only for their own antitrust violations but for those of all companies found to be co-conspirators. This rule, widely perceived as unfair, enormously inflates the potential cost of being found guilty. Hence nearly all com panies settle, even if they feel the case against them is weak. This situation has long prevailed,.but lately it has been dra matized by the possible billion-dollar li ability in the plywood case and by an equally awesome potential penalty hang ing over the Mead Corp. Now an effort is under way in Congress to change the law, which now permits what an exec utive of one defendant company calls "economic terrorism'' (see box, page 104). "Gets away with murder" While the system that has enriched Kohn is bitterly resented, Kohn himself is not. Says Harold F. Baker, the managing partner of Howrey & Simon, a prominent Washington law firm that has often opposed Kohn: "Among the plain tiffs' bar, he stands tall both in ability and integrity." Defense counsel tend to ad mire his performance. "Brilliant lawyer, absolutely brilliant? Gets^away with mur der!" exclaims one opponent. The only un kind words about Kohn come from fellow plaintiffs' lawyers who have tangled with him over the conduct of a case or the size of their fees. Their major accusation is arrogance, a charge to which Kohn pleads guilty. Kohn is a pioneer in antitrust class ac tions, and since the mid-1960s he or his firm has been involved in over 50 such cases, big and small. The breadth of his ex perience, and the degree of his success (he's lost only one case), leads many to re gard him as the dean of this highly spe cialized bar. At the same time, Kohn has carried on a general corporate practice. He is well known for his work in libel and first-amendment cases and has long represented Triangle Publications (TV Guide, Seventeen), the Philadelphia Inquir er, and the Philadelphia Daily News. The antitrust class-action bar is a tiny group, consisting of a dozen or so spe cialists in Philadelphia, Washington, Chi cago, Houston, and San Francisco. Apart from Kohn, the prominent names during the past decade have been David Berger of Philadelphia, David I. Shapiro and Jerry S. Cohen of Washington, William H. Fer guson of Seattle, John A. Cochrane of St. Paul, Frederick P. Furth of San Francisco, Stephen D. Susman of Houston, and Granvil I. Specks, Perry Goldberg, Lee A. Freeman Sr., and Lee A. Freeman Jr. ol Chicago. In conversations with some of these men, one picks up a mildly buccaneering spirit. They are forever seeking targets of opportunity, juicy cases where the cul prits are well-heeled corporations able to pay large damages. Plaintiffs' lawyers also tend to be at least mildly anti establishment types, people who enjoy hurling lances at corporate Goliaths. Harold Elias Kohn shares many of these attitudes. A native Philadelphian, he was the sor. of immigrants who attained a comfortable middle-class life, but he grew up with the antiestablishment bias of a bright Jewish law graduate--he was first in the 1937 class at the University of Penn sylvania Law School--who found the oldline law firms closed to Jews (as they Harold E. Kohn, 67, whose name has become synonymous with antitrust class action, in front of the modem federal courthouse in Philadelphia in which he has argued dozens of cases. 100 FORTUNE Septerexf 7. 1931 f URL 03575 lass-Action Gold Mine were to blacks and women). In 1939, af ter two years as a law clerk, he took a job with a new Philadelphia firm, Murdoch Paxson Kafish & Green. He remained there until 1969, when he left to form his own firm, now called Kohn 5a vet I Marion & Graf PC. As a young man, Kohn was a New Deal er, and he remains an ardent liberal. For ten years he was vice president of the Phil adelphia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1970 he was able to get publisher Ralph Ginzburg's sentence on an obscenity conviction reduced from five to three years--and later to have him paroled after eight months in jail. The Kohn firm's big recent ACLU case chal lenged the constitutionality of the draft on grounds that it excludes women. Af ter winning in the lower courts, he lost in the Supreme Court in June. A quiet eloquence Kohn is every inch the proper Phila delphian--invariably dressed in somber clothes, often with a vest in summer, a high gloss on his shoes, a neatly folded white handkerchief in his breast pocket. Whatever the season, he never shows himself on the city streets without a hat. With a visitor his manner is gracious, and as he warms to a subject he is ca pable of a quiet eloquence. He tends to talk in whole sentences, and he writes well, as in a newspaper obituary tribute to his friend and mentor, Richardson Dilworth, a leader of the postwar Democratic upsurge in Philadelphia. Kohn is astonishingly thin at 6 feet and 155 pounds--the same weight that kept him out of the Army during World War II. Yet he eats heartily and is a bundle of energy. Kohn is full of amiable contradictions. He and his wife, the former Edith Anderson, occupy a large, handsome apartment on posh Rittenhouse Square, repairing on weekends to the rustic splen dor of an eight-acre estate in Devon, 20 miles out on the Main Line--a 30-room house, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and a front lawn that could accommodate FORTUNE s*pfent&7, i96r 101 3rD* o cn --j CTi half a dozen croquet games. Yet Kohn is proud of his Toyota Corona and has nothing but contempt for nouveau riche law yers who drive around in RollsRoyces. dually. Previously a suit would be launched and, if successful, a host of similarly situated plaintiffs would come forward to claim benefits--which caused a lot of confusion. Giving notice is expen Ask him his politics today, and he responds blandly that he is sure sive--the plaintiffs' lawyers initial ly bear the expense---but manage socialism is the ideal system. But the world is less than ideal, we have seen the deficiencies of big gos'ernment, problems can't all be able. Mailings are generally made to customers on lists supplied by the defendants; there is also ad vertising in the trade and general solved by throwing money at press. them--and the socialist manqu In 1968 the consolidation of voted for Reagan last year. His class actions was facilitated by wife, who voted for John Ander son, hasn't forgiven him. He is as hardheaded as any law yer, yet a dinner guest is sudden Stephen D. Susman, 40, has forged to the front rank, of _pjlain--ttiifnfs.'' lia__w__y_e__r_s__w__i_t_h___a___p_-riic__e_-_f_i_x__i_n_g___c__a_s_--e against co^r rugated-box makers that led to settlements of $325 mil lion and a potentially huge verdict against Mead Corp. Congress's decision to set up a ju dicial Panel on Multidistrict Lit igation. Typically class actions start with a flurry of similar law ly plunged into an argument about suits in different parts of the coun free will and determinism. Kohn upholds indictments. Federal Trade Commission try; the corrugated-box litigation, for determinism, though he concedes that the complaints, even new grand-jury inves example, included more than 50 separate doctrine is no guide to everyday life. tigations. Thus alerted to potential pay suits. The panel consolidates the cases in Kohn came to the antitrust class-action business in the wake of the government's 1960 criminal prosecution of General Elec tric, Westinghouse, Aliis-Chalmers, sev dirt, they file suits and gather evidence. Not all cases follow the government's lead. Frederick Furth's pursuit of gypsumwallboard manufacturers, which resulted a single judicial district, where the cases are tried as one. A bundle in folding boxes eral othier corporations, and some of their in settlements of $67 million, started in The actual number of consolidated executives for fixing the prices of electric 1967 as a series of civil suits, on which class-action cases has been modest. Since equipment. The case was followed by nearly 2,000 civil lawsuits for treble dam the government's criminal action later piggybacked. 1968, the judicial panel has consolidated 121 antitrust cases in which a claim of ages. By consolidating the taking of de For a lawyer seeking to start a class ac class action was made. Over the past doz positions and production of documents,, tion, plaintiffs are not hard to come by. en years only some 20 cases have gen the courts handled the suits as if they con Some lawyers inform regular clients that erated settlements of $10 million or more. stituted several large class actions. a case has come up in which they might But what settlements! Apart from the bun Establishing a pattern have an economic interest. Other law yers indulge in some ambulance-chasing, dle in gypsum, the totals in the foldingbox litigation were in excess of $215 In 1964, Kohn won the first civil trial, which is easier in antitrust cases than in million, in corrugated boxes over $325 getting a treble-damage award of $28.9 securities cases, where individual stock million, in antibiotics $219 million. million and then promptly settling for holders in specific companies must be Kohn and the other leading actors in $18 million to avoid the hazards of ap found. It's no trick, after all, to find buy the field have been involved in almost all peal. "That was big money in those days," ers of plumbing supplies or corrugated the big cases. The prizes are so attractive he recalls. "We weren't jaded yet." After boxes, to name two groups on whose be that dozens of law firms that do little or two other cases were tried and won by half class actions have been brought. no other antitmst work often jump in. Or the plaintiffs, the remainder were settled. Two judicial actions in the 1960s ganizing the case then becomes a highly In the end, the defendants paid about $500 smoothed the way for cljss-action suits. political operation, with different factions million in settlements--and the class- One was the 1966 revision of Rule 23 of lining up votes and making deals. Typ action process in antitrust was launched. The electrical cases established the pat the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The new rule required that after a judge found ically, someone calls a meeting of all the lawyers to elect lead counsel, an exec tern in another way as well: the civil suits that a genuine class existed, the members utive committee, and the chairmen of piggybacked on the criminal investiga tions. Today plaintiffs' lawyers monitor of the class be notified and given time to opt out and press their claims indivi such vital committees as depositions, ar gument of motions, and preparation of cmtinutd 102 FORTUNE Seprgmber 7, 196 ' In the fine-paper case, which led to settlements of more than $50 million, 40 law firms put in fee claims totaling $20 million. URL 03577 trial memorandum. Often the lawyers labble over voting procedure--one vote lawyer, or per case, or per client? The irts usually approve what the lawyers ide. Whoever wins control has hunds or thousands of billable hours to pense as patronage. \ great row took place when the corated-box litigation was organized in 7. Stephen Susman, then 36, began case in Houston, where a grand jury 1 been investigating the industry. GranSpecks and Perry Goldberg, who had .anized the folding-carton case, which ned them a fee of more than $2 milX then sought to have the case litied in Chicago, an initiative Susman cessfuliy fought before the panel on Itidistrict litigation. At a clamorous eting in Houston to elect an executive nmittee, Susman's group won. Kohn's n initially sided with Specks and Goldg, but later cooperated with Susman. "echnique for using leverage tfter a case is -^organized, depositions taken, usually over a long period wn the plaintiffs' lawyers have assemd what they regard as a decent case, y start settling. By then the defendants tall)' have a good idea of the evidence, the case against them is compelling, y\ have three reasons to settle: to get with much less than treble damages, avoid the costs of a trial, and to escape x>tentially enormous liability for the elictions of their co-conspirators. Even hey feel the opponents' case is weak, >st defendants, unwilling to risk that loon liability, settle. Taintiffs' lawyers apply their leverage following a technique used by Kohn in antitrust suit against brass-mill and >per-tubing companies many years ago. hn announced to the defendants' laws that he would settle for a relatively dest sum with "the first company that ne through the door on Friday." The owing week, the minimum acceptable tlement would be higher, and it would up further the week after that. As ngs worked out, the first company did indeed get off lightly--for about $500,000. Later, an old friend of Kohn's, who had not really believed him, complained about the price he was being compelled to pay to settle. Kohn said he sympathized, but could make no exception lest the whole scheme break down. In the corrugated case, Susman worked out a fixed sum for every percentage point of a defendant's market share. The first settlers in 1978 got the best deal--$1 mil lion a point. Thereafter the per-point cost went up, rising to $6.5 million a point for the final pre-trial settlers. By the time the trial opened in Hous ton in the summer of 1980, only three de fendants were left. Two settled before the end of the trial. The Mead Corp. stuck it out to the end--and lost. The jury held that the co-conspirators had overcharged the plaintiffs by 5%, which implies, ac cording to Susman's rough calculation, a treble damage of nearly $1.1 billion. De duct the settlements already made and Mead could face a bill for around $770 million--an amount almost equal to shareholders' equity in Mead last year. Mead vehemently objects to this fig ure, which it considers "entirely specu lative and irresponsible." The company will not provide a figure of its own; to cal culate one, it says, would be "purely ac ademic" Mead plans to appeal and says it's confident of victory. The company is also lobbying actively in Congress to change the law. Unsurprisingly, Susman says he is still willing to settle---which is the likeliest outcome if the case continues to go against Mead. Susman says he has no interest in endangering the life of the company, and he wants to avoid the risks of further appeal. After the settlement is in, the lawyers file their fee applications. The courts used to allow attorneys to collect a contingency fee of up to 33%, but now they gener ally insist on time charges. Each lawyer submits a "lodestar"--the peculiar term first used by an appellate court in 1973 to designate the hourly rate multiplied by the hours expended. If the judge thinks a lawyer has run a large risk or done a noteworthy job, he applies a mul tiplier--occasionally as high as 4 but more often between 1.5 and 2.5. The fees are high for a reason. The cases usually are complicated, go on for years, involve endless briefs, and require scores, even hundred's, of depositions. And bring ing a class action entails significant risk Defendants in some instances refuse to settle, and sometimes suits are lost, in which case the lawyer may get nothing. David Shapiro of Washington lost $1.5 million in time charges when a case against the major automobile manufac turers went down the drain in 1975. Sha piro alleged that the carmakers had conspired to eliminate discounts to pur chasers of large fleets of cars. No auto mobile company broke ranks to settle, the case went to a non-jury trial, and the judge held that there had been no con spiracy. In one case Kohn was paid only his out-of-pocket expenses. A plaintiffs' lawyer can also suffer a loss if the court drastically reduces a proposed fee. Fighting over fat fees Moreover, it's arguable that the fees won by Kohn and his colleagues ought to be high. The specter of multimilliondollar treble-damage penalties was meant to deter antitrust violations, and the de terrent effect would be minimal if big, suc cessful class-action suits weren't brought reasonably often. Still, it is widely be lieved--even in the antitrust bar--that many fees are too high. In the fine-paper case, which led to settlements of more than $50 million, 40 law firms put in fee claims totaling $20 million. Kohn was outraged:"They will kill the goose that lays the golden egg." A few months ago, suggesting that all fees in the case be kept below $10 million, he filed a pe tition to knock down the $4.4 million Specks and Goldberg requested and the fees proposed by about a dozen other law firms. Kohn alleged that the lawyers had been trading votes in the organizing phase of the case for promises of billable "busy work and unproductive duplication of time." In court. Specks denied the charge FORTUNE SeplerTtie' 7. 1981 105 Richer. And, of course, costlier. For the very good reason that it is blended from the Cognacs of more than 70 select vineyards, all of which lie within France's two pre-eminent Cognac districts, Grande Cham pagne and Petite Champagne.Truly, the world's most civilized spirit. ssy v S.O.P. /yv ** # ^ MfNNC&Sr COGNAC. I >9* SCHiE*m>K t CD, N y The Midsize Corporation's Only Sensible Banking Decision: ^ Focussed Financing. Businesses between *20 and [*200 million have very special sorrowing needs that the Big Bank, with Itsjacade of "Per sonal Attention." often cannot satisfy. In contrast, U.S. Trust. New York's smallest, hence most ocussed money center bank, specializes In seeing that middlesize corporations no longer need settle for middling service. Forthe specifics on our Individu alized approach to corporate needs, please write or call C. Wiliam Steelman. Senior Vice President, US/IrustUnited States Trust Company of New York. 45WWhalel Sntryeoeut. Ndeowsomething very well York, N.Y. 10005 (212) 425y-4o5u00s. imply cannot do it for everyone. 106 FORTUNE SepisTtoef 7. 198* Some propose letting judges vary the damages. and contested Kohn's S1.9-milIion bill. Whatever the outcome of this case, the courts clearly ought to supervise plaintiffs' lawyers more closely. Ira M. Millstein, a leading defendants' counsel, suggests that the courts could select just one or two law firms to run the plaintiffs' entire case, as they frequently do now in suits arising out of aircraft crashes. Such a limitation might be too stringent, but cer tainly the courts could end the worksharing that allows 40 firms into the act, as occurred in the fine-paper chase, with out weakening class actions. A case for judicial discretion These issues apart, a broad consensus supports the basic function of the plain tiffs' antitrust bar, which is held by virtual!) all lawyers, economists, and business leaders to perform a valuable ser vice--compensating victims of antitrust violations, and thereby providing a de terrent. If there is an additional issue, it concerns the fairness of triple damages, which the Clayton Act made mandator)' and w'hich the advent of the class action has made far more punitive. Irving S. Shapiro, the former chief executive of Du Pont, argues that the penalties pos sible under present law can be unfair when the case against the defendant is weak. On the other hand, says Shapiro, "On an aggravated set of facts, treble dam ages are justifiable." His solution is to let judges vary the damages, from straight to triple, depending on the circumstances. Meantime, the class-action game goes on. Late in June, David Berger of Phil adelphia helped stage a press conference at which Mickey Rooney announced a class-action suit against the major movie companies. His aim is to w-in TV residual fees for actors in films made before 1960. Rooney rattled off a number of prominent names in the class (Barbara Stanwyck, Rock Hudson) and expressed outrage at the movie companies; Berger declared his confidence that the antitrust laws would work their magic and right this wrong. A touch of Hollywood glamour is about all the field has lacked. fy~ URL 03578 f-c(j ! URL 03579 - Product liability { William Kimble: How to avoid losses from product liability product made today must be , A safe for reasonablyforeseeable ' misuse and abuse. To reduce the risk of being sued: Find out who actually uses the product. They may not be the buyers. Example: Parents buy products for children. And try to identify all pos sible misuses of the product. Courts have been very strict on this. If problems turn up.xlecide whether to redesign the product, add a warning label or discontinue it. , ' ' | ! j ! [ 4 Example: Ladder manufacturers are frequently sued by people who stand on i the top step and fall off. The marufac- ; I turers` choices: Add a telescoping hand l rest for people to hold when on the top J step. Draw up a warning label not to | stand on the top. Stop making ladders. , Warning labels are not required if I the danger is inherent in the correct \ use. No warning is needed on 1 matches saying they can start fires. Essential warning: Keep matches ' out of the reach of children, j If legal action by a product user i seems possible: Try to obtain an exact sample of the product that was involved in the ; accident at once. Reason: By the ! time the case gets to court, the prod- ' i uct might be unobtainable. Examine : it to see how the accident occurred, j Notify the insurance carrier. It ; will investigate even when there is ; only the possibility of a claim. Use the information to alter the product or to revise the warning laj bel. Trap:The plaintiff's lawyer will try to use the improvement to show 1 that the company was negligent or i the product was defective if the law- ' yer can show the improvement was : feasible before the accident. Other wise, improvements made after an accident may not be used as evidence of the manufacturer's liability. Where to find experts: Human-factors engineers evaluate products in terms of how people are like ly to use them. Call the psychology or en gineering departments of local universities. Or use the Human Factors Society Directory and Yearbook, Human Factors Society, Box 1369, Santa Monica, ca 90406,515. Safety engineers apply scientific principles to protect people and proper ty. Where tofind them: American Socie ty of Safety Engineers. 850 Busse High way, Park Ridge. tL eooss. . ' ; Boardroom interviewed William Kimble, a lawyer with Lesher. Kimble & Rucker. 3773 E. Broadway, Tucson. AZ 85716. May 18.1981 Boardroom Reports FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT George Manning and David Spiseh^an How to Manage The Shrinking Hoat lectromc processing is cutting ietermine the most efficient dis Ethe time intakes checks to clear. bursement point. And if the com To keep pace with the change, pany switches disbursement points, it companies must\scrap or modifsyhould also monitor the new ones pe some long-standing cash-managreiodically. ment tactics. Important: Several years ago, the New strategies for receivables: Use computers to streamline cash management within the com pany. Many can be linked whh the bank's electronic reporting systeta to give the company an even quicker and firmer grasp of its cash positioih Offer discounts for payments made by electronic transfer. Upgrade lockboxes with a com puterized reporting system through which banks notify customers in stantly when a check arrives and when it clears. Bank fees for these Federal Reserve Board started damping down on companies that took flagrant advantage of remote (as opposed to controlled) disburse ment points. The Fed's current guidelines discourage companies from using remote disbursement points to make payments to individ uals. Companies must also have a ison for banking at the location. Examples: An office, plant or branch nearby. Or: A prior relationship with the bank. ! How check-clearing time electronic reporting systems vary I (^changing widely and depend on what balance Although the time it takes the company maintains. j banks to process checks is gener Tacticsforpayables: ally shrinking^ high volume is Begin processing bills no sooner than the afternoon of day received. Pay with checks drawn on small banks that do not have electronic data processing or other services that speed check processing. Mail checks from clogged postal areas. Example: Checks mailed from midtown Manhattan usually arrive a day later than those mailed from the Wall Street area. If the company writes its checks against an out-of-town controlled disbursement point, it should set up at least one other point and monitor the performance of each. Reason: Since clearing time is changing in many areas, only trial and error can ! causing bottlenecks in some i areas. Example\peovtt banks ( are processing cnecks in about two-thirds the time^t took them , in 1974. But in Milwaukee, ! checks take an averagfe of nearly j tfn^/ongertoclearthaqtheydid i seven years ago. j Cities where out-bf-town i checks clear in an average^less ; than 2.5 days: Atlanta! Chicago; \ Dallas; Denver; Houston; Kan! sas City; Louisville; Minne* ; olis; New York; Philadelphia Pittsburgh; St. Louis. Cities where checks take longer \ than.three days to clear: El Paso, j TX; Helena, MT; Los Angeles; ! Milwaukee; Nashville; Newark, ; \ ; Boardroom interviewed George Manning, an assistant vice president at Chemical Bank. 20 Pine St., New York 10005,on receivables, and David Spiselman. a consultant specializing in cash manage ment, 87-26 Chevy Chase St.. Jamaica Estates, NY II4J2. on payables. NJ; New Orleans; Omaha; Port land, OR; San Francisco; Seattle. Source: Phoenix-Hecht, Inc., acash-man agement analysis and consulting firm. 30 W. Monroe St., Chicago617603. business URL 03530 Pesticides9 Global Fallout Farmers in the Philippines regularlyspray World is likely to increase. President Rea their fields with parathion, a highly toxic gan has revoked an Executive order regulat pesticide Unaware ofthe chemical's harm ing export of hazardous substances, argu fuleffects, three ruraltribesmen once turned ing that "the imposition of export controls hoses on each other as ajoke. They all died. results in cumbersome regulatory prices, costly to both the public and private sec-' Afarm-supplystorein Haitiispacked with tors.*' Developing nations searching for multicolored drums ofpesticides--many of ways to boost food production eagerly buy diem banned in the United States. Clerks cheaper--if more deadly--pesticides. scoop out the toxic whitepowders with their Few laws stand in their way. According bare hands and put them into unlabeled to Dr. Jan Huismans, director ofthe Gene plasticbagsforsale tofarmers to use on their va-based International Register of Poten crops. When the drums are empty, they are tially Toxic Chemicals, about halfthe coun- sold, unwashed, topeasants who use them as water containers. The Third World For yean, the sale of eucb deadly pesti cidesas DDT, aldrin and parathion has eagerly buys toxic bees tightly regulated in the United States. chemicals,Yet American chemical companies and but lack of those in otherindustrialized nations contin ueto sell the toxic chemicals to Third World controls is spreading countries, where environmental laws are deadly pollution. virtually nonexistent. Jack Early, president of the National Agricultural Chemical As sociation, a Washington-based lobbying tries in the world have no effective group, argues that it isn't America's busi legislation to control the use oftoxic chemi nesstowriterulesfortheworld. "Wesboukf cals. Even though Brazil implemented an not impose on these countries a standard "agricultural prescription*' program last that we haveimposedonourselves,** hesays. year to control pesticides, indiscriminate Buttbedoublestandard hascreatedaworld sales continue. In the state ofRioGrande do wide peril. The widespread and careless use Sul, one mother applied a chemical called ofdangerous pesticides harms not only the ektafos to her children'sheadstorid them of developing nations. It often comes back to fleas and lice, then watched helplessly as plague industrialized countries that import the children died. Says Jose Lutzemberger, foods contaminated with the very poisons Brazil's leading environmentalist: "I can banned athome. cod any 15-year-old to the store to buy The chemical pollution of the Third ten drums of products so lethal that skin contact is sufficient to kill a person." To check that claim and to see how care fully Brazil's new pesticide laws are en forced, Newsweek's Larry Robter visited a number of stores, asking to buy several highly toxic chemicals whose purchase is theoretically limited. "I easily bought 1 kilo of aldrin, a product whose use is restricted in the United States but is openly marketed in Brazil," Rohter reported. "No questions were asked. 1 asked for paraquat, malathion and parathion. At no time was I ever asked to show any kind of prescription. When I questioned store clerks about the laws, they said they were not even aware that the laws existed." Many officials ofchemical companies re ject the criticism of their overseas sales. Robert Neuareiier, a spokesman for Mon santo, insists: "No product we make in our agricultural chemical division is sold overseasthat isnot used in theUnited States. We are always advising growers throughout the world how to use the products properly." Other corporations say that they try to en sure safe use--but that it is not their fault if something goes wrong. "After s prod uct has been moved to some banana planta tion in Guatemala, you find it's difficult if not impossible to police and control its use,*' said Robert Charlton, a spokesman for Dow Chemical. Unsubstantiated': Other producers de ny that their pesticides are particularly dan gerous. When Brian O'Dwyer, pesticides sales manager in Sfio Paulo for the British chemical company ICI, was presented with medical dossiers on paraquat intoxication in Brazil, be rejected their conclusions. "Ail reports of intoxication are unsubstantiated medically,** O'Dwyer said. "Paraquat can NEWSWEEK/AUGUST 17. 19S1 93 me BUSINESS - United States banned the import of Salva doran beef, which has high levels of DDT residues, the government outlawed the use ofDDT in 1979. Critics ofthe manufacturers accuse them of what one environmental official calls their "unnecessarily hostile attitude toward environmental groups." The National Ag ricultural Chemical Association supported a 1978 measure that gives the U.S. Environ mental Protection Agency the power to no tify foreign countries about the hazards of banned or restricted pesticides, but it now opposes key elements of those notification procedures. "What they really want to do is ` CUT all communication offbetween the EPA and officials ofdeveloping nations," argues Jacob Scherr, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The chemical companies are terrified that Third World countries will learn about the dangers of pesticides." Restrictions: Some Third World coun Shipping DDTfrom the V.S. to Indonesia: A deadly double standard Pat Soudvit tries are beginning to realize that the indis criminate use of highly toxic pesticides could prove to be a risk not worth taking. "Our people should not be used as guinea only cause problems if it is ingested or can be indecipherable. "It's all in small print pigs," says Gikonyo Kiano, a former com drunk, since it is immediately deactivated and big words," says Brazilian farm-union merce minister in Kenya. A number ofgov on contact with the soil-" One recent issue of official Mario Gabardo. ernments are trying to keep highly toxic i Shell Chemical publication contends that Hardly any Third World government pesticides out oftheir countries. In El Salva "data available in the U.S." show that cases warns fanners or local agricultural groups dor, imports of several pesticides whose of pesticide intoxication "do not exceed about the hazards of pesticides. In several sales are strictly controlled in the United URL 03531 those caused by cosmetics." Central American countries, laborers are States will be restricted next year, and Mexi In many Third World nations, living with routinely told to return to the fields before co is planning to implement a law limiting pesticides is all but unavoidable. Farm the recommended 72-hour waiting period the import of300 chemical compounds and workers eat, drink and smoke cigarettes in after fumigation. Newly sprayed fields are pesticides. But as long as the double stand sprayed fields. They bathe in contaminated rarely marked by warning signs, and some ard prevails generally, Third World nations drainage ditches. "Organosynthetic pesti environmentalists contend that aerial will continue to be ready markets for deadly cides have become a part ofthe natural and spraying often goes on while people are chemicals that the developed nations will human environment," says a report pub working. The pesticide regulations that do not tolerate without controls. lished in 1976 by the Central American Research Institute for Industry. But just bow widespread the problem is--and what exist were enacted largely because contami nated food exports have l>een rejected by other countries. For instance, after the ALEXISJ3ELBER with LARRY ROUTER in Rio de Janeiro, JOSEPH HARMES in Mexico City, ERJC SCHINE in New York and bureau reporu toll it has taken on the people--is hard to determine. In most Third World countries, government agencies do not collect statis tics on pesticide poisoning; even in those that do, countless cases go unreported. Sta tistics show 19,000 cases of pesticide poi KILLER CHEMICALS Many pesticides that are tightly controlled in the United States and other Industrialized nations are freely sold in the Third World. A number of these toxic chemicals have been linked to serious health hazards. Examples: soning in Central America between 1971 and 1976. "But they aren't realistic," says PESTICIDE SUSPECTED HEALTH HAZARDS APPROXIMATE LETHAL DOSE* Dr. Roberto Chediack, an Argentine health specialist. In an inspection of only two ru Aldrin Cancer, damage to fetus, nervous disorders Teaspoon 11 ral hospitals in Nicaragua, Chediack says he found 400 cases of pesticide poisoning. Many doctors in developing nations are as ill informed about the effects ofpesticides as the people they treat One Brazilian doctor told a 14-year-old girl suffering from para BHC Chlordane DBCP DDT Heptachlor Cancer Cancer Cancer, male sterility Cancer, nervous disorders Cancer Teaspoon Teaspoon to a tablespoon Teaspoon to a tablespoon Teaspoon to a tablespoon Teaspoon to a tablespoon 74 /l/3 /V ny quat poisoning that she simply had "a case of nerves.** OonMw Misleading advertising pre sents Third World consumers with another problem. In some advertisements pesticides are referred to only as "agricultural protec tors.** Though most farmers who regularly use pesticides are illiterate, even those who Kepone Parathion Paraquat Nitrofen Toxaphene 2,4,5-T Cancer, nervous disorders Damage to fetus, nervous disorders Damage to fetus, damage to respiratory system Cancer, birth defects, female sterility Cancer Cancer, birth defects Teaspoon to a tablespoon A few drops Teaspoon to a tablespoon One-half pint ? ^ Teaspoon 1 ounce -f i // 7t/j )0C ran read become confused. Many contain ers bearlabels in English, German and Jap anese, and even those in native languages Son* Taaootav branch of Thn Gvtor lor Eiwtonmratf HNWUXOMntoOMwOtmi Sisue. aoncwmiwi term Clair* A. Hwee-Ntwwu NEWSWEEK/AUGUST 17.19S1 55 ... , ------ f' i-t t '^ Books 5 URL 03582 The environmental threat to infants and the unborn Human concern with congenital malformations is as ancient as human awareness, having been mentioned in Babylonian writings and the Bible and discussed by Aristotle. Early views that maternal impressions structurally affected the unborn held widespread credence for centuries. Educated attitudes in Western Eu rope in the 19th century shifted to view embryos and fetuses as inviolate in the uterus and untouchable by the environment. Mendel's genetic laws provided an apparent explanation for abnormal births: All flaws arose from genetic mishaps, and development of the zygote was based solely on the genetic information present at fer tilization. The 20th century brought the first experimental evidence for the role of the environment in theproduction of abnormal offspring. The supposed safety of the human conceptus in utero was directly challenged by a report in 1941 that a German measles epidemic in Australia resulted in offspring with cataracts, deafness, and congenital heart disease. The thalidomide disaster, involving more than 8000 children in 28 countries between 1955 and 1965, also served to trigger,awareness of the vulnerability of tnelntrauterine occupant to out side influences. Recent concern about the impact of environmental contaminants on the well-being of present and future generations, the increasing presence of women of childbearing potential in nontraditional jobs, and the current unwillingness of the public to be pacified, reassured, and placated by scientists, public officials, or other "heroes" of bygone eras all make timely a book which attempts to dis cuss current knowledge regarding environmental agents and their role as causes of birth defects. Christopher Norwood, in "At Highest Risk," considers "the effects of an increasingly toxic environment on the health of the young and un born." As Norwood, a science writer and journalist, admits, her book is "a relentless exposition of problems." She is willing to defend "the belea guered government scientist and even the beleaguered government bu reaucrat." She believes that there are "some very good and concerned A less-than-balanced and polemical compilation of horror stories depicts a world full of chemicals , toxic to the young "At Highest Risk: Environmental Hazards to Young and Unborn Chil dren" by Christopher Norwood, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1980, 280 pages, 9 10.95 hardback, 94.95 paper back (Penguin) Reviewed by Rochelle Wolkowski-Tyl, head of the teratology section of the de portment of toxicology at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, who received herPh.D. in developmental ge netics from the University of Connecticut in 1968, tought embryology and human genetics there, and carried out research on agents toxic to the reproductive sys tem and embryo for 10 years before joining CIIT health specialists working in our government" and "that our environ mental dilemmas are [not] hopeless or insoluble." However, she paints a "world brimming with toxic materials." By horror story after horror story, she indicts and castigates clinicians, the health industry, drug and chemical companies, judges, lawyers, the "lobbyist-dominated Congress," and, to a lesser extent, government regu latory bureaucrats for ignoring rele vant data, for political decisions, for unswerving dedication to the profit motive, and, in the past, for "paltry ethics." Norwood discusses an awesome gamut of agents: the herbicide 2,4,5-T (and its contaminant dioxin), methylmercury, smoking, hormone preg nancy supports such as diethvlstObestrol, microwaves, ionizing radia tion, airport environments, anes thetics and operating room environ ments, drugs, alcohol, food additives, lead, chemical wastes, the soil fumi gant DBCP, transplacental carcino gens, and delivery practices. She sees all of these as causes of developmen tal malformations, functional defi ciencies, and childhood and adult cancer. Norwood feels that "the environ mental exposures that today's chil dren confront are more numerous in concentration and more toxic in character than in the past." She is disappointed by the slowness with which government agencies such as the Food & Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency act, as protectors of the pub lic, to regulate substances under their jurisdiction. She attempts to pull to gether a plethora of trends--in creasing incidence of violent crimes committed by teenagers, lower scores on scholastic achievement tests, childhood hyperactivity, a general lowering in number and quality of sperm, the "disconcerting" level of fetal wastage--as all possibly indic ative of the effects of an increasingly toxic environment on reproduction and development. There are, at present, no data to confirm or refute her implications of a cause-and-effect relationship or even, in some cases, to indicate whether there is a trend at aU. In any case, statistical correlations can never fwova for disprove) au~4ality' Norwood does try to provide a balanced approach in a number of instances. For example, when she describes the fetal alcohol syndrome, she also indicates maternal malnu trition as a possible causative or con founding factor. She notes the current small decrease in incidence of Down's syndrome children, as well as a rather striking decrease reported in the age of mothers of such children, and dis cusses the multiplicity of factors in volved: the decreasing number of older women having -Children, the availability of amniocentesis to identify Down's fetuses in older women, the possibility that an in crease in Down's syndrome children born to younger mothers (again, her thesis is that they may be caused by environmental pollutants) almost balances the drop in births among older mothers. She is not always so evenhanded, however. She mentions two children May 18, 1961 CAEN 57 A Books with Hamman-Rich syndrome (a se example, thalidomide) need not be rious form of lung tissue scarring) who mutagens, and a large number of had been exposed to the herbicide known mutagens are not teratogens. paraquat. She issues the caveat that Currently there is no teratogen for two cases don't make a trend, but which the mechanism is known from they are mentioned in precisely that its initial entry into the organism context. (maternal or fetal) to its ultimate She discusses 2,4,5-T (and dioxin) pathological manifestation. Sug at great length, describing its use in gested mechanisms range from mu Vietnam and claims of its role in the tagenic or clastogenic events to mi production of malformed and still totic inhibition, altered substrate born children by exposed American status, ionic imbalance, or enzymic veterans and civilians, as well as alterations. Suggested sites of action claims by eight women in Oregon of vary similarly, ranging from intra miscarriages after 2,4,5-T spraying of nuclear or intracellular to extra- forests there. She does not discuss embryonic. Normal development re basic criticisms of an EPA-sponsored quires a precise sequencing of events epidemiological study of the Oregon involving cell movements and divi women which showed higher miscar sions, programed cell deaths, bio riage rates, nor the subsequent stud chemical syntheses, and so on. Any ies that did not uphold the EPA thing that disrupts this tight time findings of increased miscarriages. table may induce structural and/or She treats the Love Canal night functional damage. | mare with a kind of cavalier "every Meanwhile, several federal agen body knows who the bad guys are" cies prescribe specific teratogenicity attitude. She recites the litany of tests for drugs, food additives, and ( chromosomal and birth defects with environmental agents involving ex i the conviction of a legend teller. Yet posure of the test animal and evalu the Panel to Review Scientific Stud ations of its fetuses for soft-tissue and ies and the Development of Public skeletal defects. Norwood percep Policy on Problems Resulting from tively states that "it is quite obvious Hazardous Wastes appointed by the that real breakthroughs are not going governor and state legislature of New to come from this endless process of York concluded that no health effects dosing mice and rats with possible had been demonstrated, although it teratogens and counting up their did not rule out such effects. Norwood bones; the real breakthroughs depend does not discuss the inadequacies or on understanding the mechanisms the political problems involved in the and metabolism of teratogenesis." Btudies she does cite which contrib But she does not even begin to ad uted to the current lack of valid in dress the fundamental misgivings formation. many teratologists have of current She also gets mixed grades on her "accepted" test protocols. Essentially, observations on teratological re these protocols involve exposure of search. She states, without revealing the embryo during organogenesis, a her sources, that "after 30 years, relatively brief period in the first tri several billions of dollars, and an in mester (approximately the 18th to tensity of effort perhaps exceeded 60th day of gestation in humans) only by the search for a cancel cure" when the organism is laying down its scientists realty have not advanced major organ systems and is most much in their understanding of birth vulnerable to overt structural dam defects. To my knowledge, this is not age. However, the fetus is still vul an accurate description of the inten nerable to environmental agents after sity of the research effort or of the this period. The central nervous, im- progress in this field. She points to znunoaurveillance, reproductive, he the Ames test as a great breakthrough matopoietic, and digestive systems in carcinogenicity testing, with the are still undergoing major develop implication that teratologists are ment. Small structural deficiencies in remiss for not having developed a these systems would not be detected similar quick and dirty screen. But by the examinations now employed. the Ames test has real limitations and The procedures we now are using may tests only certain classes of chemicals. be letting some false negatives slip It works only because (according to through from the pitifully few chem the current consensus) all carcinogens icals we do test. are mutagens, all DNA is identical, The ultimate impression is tha and a mutagen in the Ames test is a Norwood's book is a wearying com suspect mutagen (and, therefore, a peodium of proven, probable, possi carcinogen) for humans. Die, and totally unsubstantiate There is no such fundamental horror stories about environmentt dogma for teratogens! Teratogens (for teratogens. It appears to be a dutifully 'JfiL 03583 researched effort by a writer inexpe rienced in the field. There is little or no indication of the progress being made or of the efforts involved or any attempt to separate known causative associations from hypothetical unexplored connections. The "parent or potential parent" for whom the book supposedly is written may very well come away from it convinced that he or she can't breathe the air, drink the water, or eat the food of our modern world, that there is a vast industrial-governmental cabal against the public, and that there's nothing much we can do! This im pression is not accurate or fair. Norwood is long on personal de scriptions of the people she has talked with and their experiences and on unsubstantiated data. But she is short on the task, admittedly difficult, of explaining the progress or impedi ments to progress, the efforts, or the fundamental difficulties in defining even basic test systems. She does not convey the frustrating race re searchers in the field run in trying to keep up with chemicals now in the workplace and marketplace, as well as with the 1500 to 2000 new ones in troduced each year. It is difficult enough just to test them for toxicity, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity, for which reasonably reliable test sys tems do exist, let alone for reproduc tive and teratogenicity effects, for which such systems don't yet exist. Her style is anecdotal as well as polemical, with a quirky sense ofter minology. She writes that transpla cental carcinogenesis has "an element of biological jest." She uses the term "gashed palates" for cleft palates and discusses the possibility of "blast[ing] out the brains of fetuses" by micro- waves. Nevertheless, she has pulled to gether a great deal of information for laypersons most concerned and per haps least informed. The book's jacket compares Norwood's book to "Silent Spring," written by Rachel Carson in 1962. "Silent Spring" was a landmark book that challenged and changed, once and for all, our view of the unassailable resiliency and sta bility of the environment and sounded the alarm fat the devastation we are wreaking on the fabric of our world. Norwood has neither the lyric skill nor the scientific background of Carson. Only time will tell whether she also has written a landmark book to be cited by future environmental ists and teratologists as the turning Point in their struggle to provide a safe environment for the unborn and newly born. D HoUsedo^SwntrolsSou; Eddwarrd*s *o''''"'*JJa,,vyuMnencfwaeTSJ prfbllopfol,u'I'on'>^ ^n devote^toV ^dudve S^SSSSgl ?\*,- .; iH^s 6* CIRCLE 101 ON READER SERVICE CARD i 'V .:A *Nr have over 20 years 3 -ofR & D experience - ^ jin phosphine chemicals. v ' *' *.. * ;* "Weld like to share at 32 with you! ; - - ..ri,>it.., We've been synthesizing phos phine chemicals and investiga ting their many unique proper ties lor over twenty years. We've found that properties like selec tive metal compfexing, mjcJeopfttfi&iy and stability give rise to a host of diverse applications. These include metal recovery, pollution control, chemical pro cess catalysis and phase transfer catalysis. We are the world leader in the R&D, manufacture and market ing of phosphine chemicals. We want to share out storehouse of experience with you. Write or call today for our "Chemistry" and "Applications" brochures. Contact Dr. David Burley, American Cyanamid Company, Phosphine Chemicals, Wayne, New Jersey 07470, 201/831-4020 CYANAMID Phosphine Chemicals CIRCLE 17 ON READER SERVICE CARD May 16, 1961 CAEN 69 URL 03584 Section III CANCER POLICY A'~JA, n URL 03585 The "First Annual Report on Carcinogens" from the Department of Health and Human Services' National Toxicology Program discusses only 26 chemicals -- Aug. 13, Page H. Sixteen chemicals found carcinogenic in tests by the National Toxicology Program should be placed on a "risk list" -- Auc. 20, Pace 3. Environmental Cancer Risk Assessment panel of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment will meet in Nov. at OTA headquarters -- Sept. 3, Page 2. Cancer Policy Congress Page 7 PESTICIDE & TOXIC CHEMICAL NEWS URL 03536 Bioassay reports available prom the National Cancer Institute include reserpine, fluometuron, 2 6TOLUENED I AMINE DI HYDROCHLORI DE, PHENOL AND 4 ,4'-OXYOEAN iLINE ~ NOV. 12, PACE 2. An OTA panel on "Technologies for Determining Cancer Risks Prom the Environment" is preparing a report for THE INCOMING SENATE LABOR ANO HUMAN RESOURCES COMMITTEE WHICH WILL RAISE FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES OF REGULATORY policy -- Oec. 10, Pace 3. Union Carbide denies any significant increase in incidence of brain tumors in its Texas City plant ~ Oec. 17, Pace IB. EPA has made a tentative decision that it is not worth agency resources to PURSUE A CHEMICAL WHICH PRESENTS * A CANCER RISK BELOW ID*6 "" JUNE 2*4, PACE 3. NACA SEES GHOST OF DELANEY IN EPA DECISIONS ~ JUNE 24, PACE 32. Section IV -- CONGRESS F! FRA Senate FIFRA action is in a holding pattern following House passage of the reauthorization bill -- July 9, Pace 2. FIFRA EXTENSION BILL IS EXPECTED TO BE ACTED ON BY THE SENATE BEFORE THE BREAK FOR THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION ~ July 23, Pace 2. The Veterans Administration and Dow Chemical Company were criticized before a House Veterans Affairs sub committee in a continuing investigation of Agent Orange -- July 23, Pace 27. FIFRA ENFORCEMENT IS THE PLANNED FOCUS OF HEARINGS ON IELEMENT AT 10 N OF THE ACT WHICH MIGHT BE HELO THIS FALL BEFORE THE HOUSE GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS COMMITTEE'S SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT, ENERGY & NATURAL RESOURCES -- July 30, Pace 2. The Senate-House Conference on FIFRA could begin before the August recess for the Democratic Convention -- July 30, Page IS. Sens. Jackson and Magnuson (D-Hash.) asked EPA for a report on the reculatory status of captan and benomyl -- -July 30, Pace 37. -tPA budget, part of the HUD appropriations, was amended and passed by the House ~ July 30, Page 38. House FIFRA conferees are named -- Auc. 6, Pace 2. Rep. Foley (D-Uash.) urges rulemakinc for controversial cotton-pesticide advisory opinion -- Auc. 13, Pace 27. Hearings on pesticide contamination of ground water are expected to be helo before the Subcommittee on Environment, Energy & Natural Resources, House Committee on Government Operations -- Auc. 20, Pace 2. Human health.ano the environment are not being protected by EPA's pesticide regulations, according to Rep. Wampler {R-Va.) -- Auc. 20, Page 12. CPA PESTICIDE BUDGET CUT $5 MILLION BY SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMI TTEE* 6 SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUD-INDEPENDENT Agencies -- Sept. 3, Page 2. Agent Orange hearings before the Senate Veterans1 affairs Committee will be held in Sept, in the Russell Bldg. -- Sept. 3, Pace 2, Senate FIFRA oomferees have been namcd.* Sens. Talmadce ID-Ca.), Stone (O-Fla.), Leahy <D-Vt.), Stewart (D-Ala.), Helms (R-N.C.), Hayakawa (R-Calif.), and Jcpsen (R-Ia.) -- Sept. 10, Pace 2. Pesticioe contamination of water will be the takeoff point for an investigation of EPA REGULATION OF pesticides planned by the House Government Operations Committee's Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee -- Sept. 10, Page 3. EPA PESTICIDE BUDGET OUT OOULD RESULT IN a 75 PERCENT CUT IN THE EXTRA-MURAL EPIDEMIOLOCI CAL STUDIES OONE BY VARIOUS UNIVERSITIES FOR THE AGENCY -- SEPT. 17, PAGE 2. EPA PESTICIOE BUDGET CUT DECISIONS HAVE NOT YET BEEN MADE, ACCORDING TO EDWIN l. JOHNSON, EPA's DEPUTY Assistant Administrator for Pesticioe Programs -- Sept. 2k, Pace 2. EPA IS HOPEFUL THAT FUTURE COLLABORATION WITH AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS ON TECHNIQUES TO AVERT ORI FT WILL BE MORE SUCCESSFUL -- SEPT. 2k, PACE 4. ^vj`vr //-/ ico Inc. Plans Tax-Exempt Savings Certificate, Cleared Child Cancer 1$ Tied THE W ALL STRE Acquire Firm By Congress Panels, Likely Faces Changes $221 Million ---------- \ With Ladish Co. in ck Swap Fits Pattern Recent Diversification A Stbett Jwmu Stafftttfonar ETOWN. Ohio-Armco Inc. said n principle to acquire Ladish Co.. .ield metaJ-iorgtiif! concern. In an of stock valued at SSI million. rger with Ladish would ft! Into a recent years of Armco not only if but strengthening its position in eciaJiy markets, including energy, t oi the agreement, Ladish has I 53'-, ol its stock u Armco as part wsed transaction, of the agreement call for Armco ee ' shares of its common for r cm stare r.f of Ladish stock. i shfhtlv r:.-< than 6.5 million of would bt involved in the proposed .mg on the New York Stock Excmpositc tape last Thursday, Bed ai S3',.875, down II from V. eryer is suhtecl to approval by dlboth companies and Ladish share- ,, fc-.*--1 in Cudahy, Wis., makes c forgings industrial flttinfS. xn;-: ai.. d.'t .'iStlng tools. It was ir. IfCs and employes about 6.500 in =e - '-a' plants, in 1880 Ladish n.b million ou sales of 5486.3 mil- ,ave grra- ior Ladish's pro- nagenieni njj innovative manufac- ncedure' " H'rry Holiday, chief ex- fl ett o; Ai.,,.5, said. "In addition, tsiandne i- r-'ology and proprie- iprr.en: in Fpecniized forgings ofier it. g^c tr* op,^rtunifies in the aero- eiense and energy markets." inior, to carbon and specialty Reels, s a leading m.'ker of oil-tield equip B-fll as industrial products and re- rvtces and fabricated cfmposite and oducts. Armco also mines coal Iron limestone and Is engaged in oil and deration. It also provides financial urance services through a subsidi- ific Steel & Supply, President Charged By Robot w. Moty added, some alternative approaches are ai StaffReport** of Tm Wu- Shut Soubkai. der discussion. W'ASHINGTQN-The tax-exempt savings One possibility, they said, would be to certificate that sailed through both congres provide more tax relief through greater ben sional tax-writing committees last month efits for contributions to Individual Retire will likely be changed before H emerges from Congress this summer. 'Some important members of Congress are beginning to leel skittish about enacting the Idas, which was attached to major tax bills two weeks ago in both the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees and has since met with a barrage of criti cism. One of those skittish members ts Sen Robert Dole <R.. Kan.), Finance Committee chairman, who led his committee in approv ing the President's tax package two weeks ago But. over administration objections, the committee voted unanimously to accept the so-c&iied all-savers provision Sen. Dole said at a news conference that the provision might be changed. "We're looking for better ideas (on how to spur savings i between now and Hoc*time." the chairman said, adding be ex ment Accounts, or IRAs. Both the Senate bUl and its House counterpart sweeten tax breaks for such contributions, but they could be sweetened even further. Also under discussion Is a plan to allow a federal agency to purchase low-interest mortgages that constitute a financial drag on savings and loan associations, thus giving them a much-needed Infusion of cash. The plan calls for the SALs to purchase the mortgages back after mortgage-interest rales have dropped enough to relieve the current squeeze at SAL associations. "If we're going to bail out the SALs," said one congressional staff assistant, 'this might be a better and cheaper way of doing it" The Treasury Department has ex pressed opposition to this plan, the staffer notes, adding. "Bui that was before they had the all-savers thing rammed down their throats.'* The Treasury remains opposed to the all- pected the tax bill to reach the Senate Door . savers bill, as well as to other costly propos next week, probably on July 15 als Intended to bail out the ailing thrift tn- The provision would creaie a tax-exempt dusyy. Although the department is studying savings certificate that would pay 70^c of alternatives to the all-savers certificate pro the raie on one-year Treasury bills for a posal. '"We still feel that the political popu one-year period starling Oct. 1. Savers could larity is sbqh that we don't want to jeopar exclude from theiT taxable Income as much dize the whole tax bill by coning out against as 11.000 of Interest earned on the certifi It," a Treasury-spokesman said. cates. or as much as 12.000 for couples filing joint tax returns. Plan Is Criticized Delay of Summer Recess? Sen. Dote said nK, hoped the full Senate could complete action'sqn the Finance Com Critics call the provision a "H billion mittee's tax tall by thrend of next week. bailout" of the financially troubled savings That would keep alive the possibility, he and loan Industry, and some observers say said, that Congress could finish work x the it wouldn't provide any tax breaks for low- bill before the start of the summer recess or income Americans. According to some esti Aug. 1. mates, a single taxpayer would have to earn He also raised the possibility that the {29.000 a year to realize a benefit. A family Senate might delay the recess by a week to of four lhai Itemizes its deductions would n&U down, at the least, a conference agree have to earn 140.000 a year to get a break. ment that would reconcile House and Senate Others suggest, as Sen Dole did, that the tax-bUI versions. provision won't generate any new savings Although the two houses would later have but would simply redirect funds already la to approve such a conference agreement, he Ute country's saving pool. noted, getting an early agreement would At his news conference. Gen. Dole de give the Internal RevenuewServtee time u> clined to specify what alterations may be alter tax withholding tables before the first under discussion. "There are numerous scheduled individual tax cut x OcL l. ideas being discussed." be said, "and we In the House, Ways and Means chairman may find that this (all-savers approach! Is Dan Rostenkowskl <D,. -Hi-) has said be the best we can do." Asked if the cncepf plans to get a tax hill-through the House by might be dropped, be replied, "Oh. 1 don't Aug. 1, and that be would accept conference think so." sessions during the August recess "if tt Congressional staff assistants said it's proved necessary." men likely that the provision would be fine- A Rostenkowskl aide said last week that tuned rather than replaced with some other the Ways and Means chairman adheres to savpigs-incentive approach, fifth, they that position. J.S. Customs Case Bank Board Will Allow S&Ls to Trade Til' v ; F3: t v .': S-Ttr.FT JOklRAL Rscitic Steel A Sup- More Heavily in Interest-Rate Futures i. . -.o a salesman with a hvs, i ' of .Japan have been ? fatse U.S-. .Customs v Wau. Itbxtt Jovmai. Staff Reporter WASHINGTON-Substantial new partici - * A. Falk. CNpears pation in interest-rate futures markets ts l>. rodent of Pacific foreseen as a result of federal action to per ::d tit San Lean-' mit much wider trading in them by savings -u. 5. Yersoka. 45. of San ''My] loan associations. The Federal Home Loan Bank Board, tat >er< i t- v .m Lie San Francisco a mite its chairman describes as among " < i.'SA', Inc., an the mxKjmportant it has ever taken, ap lr. New York proved finW .regulations greatly looserung - k Co. lid. trading restrictions for &*ia beginning Fri Susan Kelsey, a board Raft member, said she didn't expect many sai* to at tempt to hedge all their assets but that many probably would attempt to hedge all their six-month money-market certificates. In any event, the potential market for fu tures wtu be expanded considerably by the change. SALs have issued more than $200 billion of six-month money-market certifi cates. That ts nearly seven times more than the industry's net worth, the previous limit r - 'a?e that mar- day. N. - .r-.-cir ts. Under the new rules, the nation's nearly Three Firms Pleadt-drfied for com- 4.000 federally insured will be allowed "Atmally, I have to lake positions hedging'-fiD their assets. No Contest in Case.eii me to say The old rules didn't allow extracts to total more than an SAL'S net vorUbjypicaUy ............. jtciiii from an fit- only 5% of assets. X On Price Fixingi,,r? 1"? ''her li.S. antidumping The new rules also allow trading fe-aity .t:r .'vp'vtd the purchase of contracts based on securities tn which (he io I--. c,.re; from Mitsui. SALs can legally Invest. This will permit ' re c 4v. c-. accused of eonsplring trading tn Treasury securities futures and A W*ix IrutT JouBMAi. Non '1 'it ti- U.S. Customs bank certificate of deposit futures. Cur Three companies charged with fixing it :r. price mechanism," a rently. only Government National Mortgage prices of an materials pleaded no contest in c t tr. Treasury Department ''* prices o! imported steel products, '.-.ring tr l?*i the l`.S. government '"d merer nnces. whi-*- it considered Association futures can be traded. The Bank Board approved the UberaJ trading rules m hopes that sai a will use them to protect themselves against future federal court In Toledo, Ohio. They coold be fined as much as $1 million earn Judge Nicholas Walinski accepted the pleas of Burney A Smith Inc., East. Pa.; To Parents 'Exposure To Chemicals on Job Study Suggests 25% of Tumors May Be linked; Further Research Unred A Vu.JrwR Jovbmal Wrwi Amouiup Children of chemical workers and others exposed to chemicals, paints and solvents may face a greater risk of brain turnon than other children. In a recent study of 82 children with brain tumors, scientists found those children were more likely to have parents who worked with chemicals than were a similar group of children who didn't have tumors. All the children were under 10 years old. ' Cbmpared with the control group, more than three times as many mothers of chil dren with brain tumors were exposed to chemicals and nearly three times as many fathers were exposed to solvents. Seven times as many of the children with brain tu mors bad fathers who worked with palms. The study didn't identify which chemicals might cause the brain tumors. Scientists said further research is necessary. Researchers at the University of South ern California School oi Medicine in Los An geles, site of the Rudy, also found an asso ciation between a father's employment In the aircraft industry and his child's brain tu mor. The fathers of 12 children with brain tumors worked tn the aircraft industry, compared with only two of the controls. If the data holds up in further research, it may mean as many ts 25^r of the brain cancers among children are caused by the occupational exposures of their parents, said Dr. John M. Peters, wbo beaded the re search team. "We've worried about the di rect effects (of chemical exposures) for years." he said. "Now we're beginning to see evidence that exposures to parents may have repercussions to kids." Results of the Rudy art to be published In this week's Is sue of Science magazine. Cancer is the second leading cause ol death among children, after accidents. Brain cancers often are fatal. The study is significant because little ti known about the causes of brain tumors in children or in adults, and uttie research has been done on bow children are affected by their parents' exposure to chemicals. Most studies have concentrated health problems among chemical workers and on the effects of chemicals on fertility, genetic material and cm the fetus. Some studies have been done on the health problems of families oi asbestos workers. University of Southern California re searchers Interviewed the mothers of the 1W children by telephone. The mothers were asked about their own work histories and those of the children's fathers. They alsc were asked about smoking habits, use ol drugs and alcohol, hair dyes and certair foods during pregnancy, which the research ers later concluded wasn't a factor In the brain tumors. The parents' chemical expo sures too* place before, during and aftet pregnancy. The study cited several "plausible" ways a child could be affected by a pareht's occu pational exposure, including contact with soiled workdolhes and the mother's eontacl with soiled workdothes before or during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. NewElse Bug Kill uotoaP of Insect tneed-Aalde" la a clean, all of trie Qovtrnmant^deveiope that can't barm pets, pec oology. Try ft free for IS d; H*r wr ew--me bugs oi wm Ming *yng meet 0tt& that Onv vc poi you' ouldDD' barbacuas eoed-ot-tha-a.'a'vng fwnmoe* anooit eantnioyDug-traacei'ntori *ianuio DEVELOPED BY SCIErr CLEAR MALARIAL SV Tna naan o' th inaae'-*a>ee" ftuOTtcarii lamp o>etha<lr oavalepad ane proiaa cono" eraet WcH-'tna un n<4ges--a>mott JOO k-net . awacti--' Tiutib an-aetao to liiarvty uppad by *n --cap"* NO ANNOYING "POP". N( TO PEOPLE. AND NO HAf ECOLOGY. 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DAY?H7NE 2ft, 1981 WM <SP) 35 CENTS Weekly Earnings Washington Wjre Rely Counterattack -m ^ t jar. 9--Bet mow defer- s mkfy to As women AKfimbs* registration, nl (strict id from the to register. toon.bdtod a fink be- 'appears to tkxL" ears to be tea'sgroip VU *bex- pe a fmeni tWD 1973 Wt* irt jy riiiw ftahocal govcniteney. Sept* on political AVKRAO&WBBKLT PAT of toctory rntcn to Makrose to 017.19 from a revbed $H2.44 the^ecedhig month, the I*bor Department New CIA Si ister Is Likely to Bei Legend in His tme Street Fighter' Mai Hugel Arouses Strong/Feelings Among Reagar/Assodates A Special W< ^Report From P&G Is Going All-Out Tito Wafl Journals Bureau To Track Toxic Shock 'ATfON TACTICS by ReagaaHa jhMtofrraif art The Heridartand aides, tough, deal BpK Democratic leaden another heavy lb* to the budget battle. Tbe G(P victory/mterday on an Important test vote Areagthess chances Reagan will win a thme majority for bis proposals. Re al Speaker O'Neill as a pays off; ao does Reagan's tnten* tove phrtiigof Bouse memben on behalf of And Exonerate Itself Firm Finances Researchers, Collects a Mass of Data; Campaign Has Its Risks Cooking Their Own Goose? But Tkeasoqrnttef Regan tolls to any Ways art Means Chairman Rostenkowskl by toidtostlng Mm tor tax-cot Inertia. Chances tor revamping the Clean Air Act dip as nd of a drastic administration pro posal gets around. Anna-control nominee Rostov ly raised Senators' hackles vtth talk steal a long SALT delay; he that drifted toa.aofter Itaie. Ae wo-compromise push AWACS arte to Saudi Arabia tooatfe Bern. Lazuli vans amYAfft^He mi delay to mending the Ctmgms. REAEANITES ACT tant off leaks ai ` By DbakAowast ntajjsteporteff ToWau. Iwmt Ifluium. CXNCINNATI-Procter k Gamble Co. Is atm pursuing trade-shock syndrome vtth a vengeance and Is taking some uncharacter istic risks tn the process. . P&G's Rely tampons were singled oat last fall by the government's Centers for Disease Control as being associated with toodc shock -- a mysterious disease that seems to strike menstruating women most frequently and has claimed over 80 lives in the UJL during tbe past three yean. Under pressure from the Food and Drug Admlnis- f tr&ttan, which was threatening to order a formal recall, PAG voluntarily withdrew Rely from the market at ah after-tax cost of URLO ]4 THE WALL STRfcfcl juumxau mu.,,------- Square u io duj Rely Counterattack: P&G Is Going Appleton Electric L URL 03589 All-Out in Fight Over Toxic Shock For Cash, Securities 4-------------------------------------------------------- Continued From First Page can't argue with P&G's concerns," says . - ' dantly clear to the universities involved that our purpose was to ensure that an under standing of toxic shock would be developed in the shortest time possible," Mr. Place says. "We did not intend to control or direct the work, but rather to facilitate the normal process of academic research." The com pany adds: "It's patently ridiculous for any one to imply that these scientists could be bought off." Some critics suggest as much. Others have a different fear. They complain that because p&G holds the purse strings, it may be able to control what research is and isn't conducted, as well as the flow of information relating to the researchers' findings. . "They do have an influence over the work, because they are funding what they want funded," says William J. Brown, an associate professor of immunology and mi crobiology at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He received $125,000 from P&G for research he is conducting. P&G defends itself by pointing out that it financed 90% of the "legitimate" researchers who ap proached it for funds. P&G also has been involved in a variety of other efforts to accumulate Information about toxic shock. For instance, it enlisted 14 outside experts in such fields as microbiology, immunology, genetics, biochemistry and epidemiology to conduct seminars for its own scientific and medical people. In early May, the company gathered 50 Robert Britain, the FDA's acting deputy di rector of the Bureau of Medical Devices, who assumed that post after Rely had been withdrawn from the market. Mr. Britain says the FDA's action at the time might well be called "a half-scientific and half guts call." He concedes that other scientists might be able to come up with reasonable explanations for the CDC's findings other than those implicating Rely. P&G rejects the CDC's finding that the number of toxic cases has dropped since Rely was withdrawn. While the CDC waits for state health departments to voluntarily report to it. P&G says, the company actively polls the state agencies regularly. Only "a minority of the cases are being reported" to the CDC. it says. To P&G's claims the CDC says, Non sense. "I don't have a vested interest in tam pons or tampon sales," says Bruce Dan, the deputy chief of the CDC's toxic-shock task force, "There is overwhelming evidence, confirmed over and over," that singles out Rely. "I understand where they (P&G officials) are coming from," Mr. Dan says. "P&G has already lost $75 million (from the one-time write-off). and they're going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars In lawsuits. One can dismiss studies all one wants, and if you get rid of all the data, there Is nothing to Implicate Rely." By o Wall Stkkct Journal StaffReporter PALATINE, Dl.--Square D Co., which has become more aggressive in merger ac tivity, said it plans to acquire Appleton Electric Co. of Chicago. The transaction would involve a package of securities and cash valued at about $140 million and would provide future payments over a five-year period, with a limit of $200 million on the total price. According to the agreement in principle. Square D, a maker of electrical equipment, would issue two million shares of its com mon (or a smaller number if the stock rises above $35 a share) plus cash and 12% deben tures equal to the approximate value of the common stock issued. Holders of closely held Appleton would be entitled to additional common and deben tures annually if after-tax earnings of Appleton in the five year period-1982-1986-ex- ceeded $11 million a year cm a cumulative basis. The payments based on future earn ings would be made about 50% in common stock (valued at no less than $35 a share) and about 50% in 12% debentures, f In New York Stock Exchange composite trading yesterday. Square D common closed at $34.25. Subject to customary closing conditions, completion of the acquisition is expected in September, Square D said. Appleton had sales of $115 million and net income of $5.4 million in the fiscal year ended July 31, 1930. For fiscal 1981, sales leading specialisis-a veritable who's who in Could Save a Bundle are estimated at $140 million and net Income toxic-shock research-to exchange ideas on If P&G can convince juries that the CDC at $11 million. Last year, Square D had the disease. The weekend seminar, replete erred, it could save a bundle in court sales of $1 billion and net income of $83 mil with cocktail parties and catered meals, was awards or settlements. William J. Ahern, a lion, or $3.41 a share. held at the plush new Westin Hotel In down- Columbus, Ohio, lawyer who hopes to bring Donals E. WUson; Square D's vice presi . town Cincinnati. a $75 million class-action suit against P&G dent, finance, said Appleton's product tine Leads and Dead Ends on behalf of women In the state, says his complements Square D's. Appleton makes Moreover, P&G has kept some of its top scientific people crisscrossing the country pursuing leads and possible solutions to the toxic-shock puzzle. The company has logged 92 such expeditions, many of them terminat ing in dead ends. Aside from the scientific data, P&G Is amassing other information and documenta tion. The Centers for Disease Control says P&G got about 20,000 documents from it un der the Freedom of Information Act. The company's total cost for obtaining docu ments and for monitoring news accounts in volving toxic shock is estimated In the mil lions of dollars. When the product-liability trials start, which isn't expected to be soon, P&G un doubtedly will draw heavily on all the infor mation it has gathered. Using a series of charts, graphs and sci entific explanations, P&G nowadays makes a strong case that the Centers for Disease Control goofed in singling out Rely. "As more data became available," says Mr. Place, the P&G vice president, it became "abundantly clear that our initial suspicions (about the CDC's study! were more than justified." "Can't Argue With That" P&G's contention, to essence, is that the CDC's investigative method, and that of some non-CDC studies that reached similar conclusions was lamiy. me wuiiwuj that the CDC. with the Food and Drug Ad ministration breathing down its neck, was forced to move too quickly, using data that hadn't been property reviewed by scientists who weren't involved in the study. In turn, says the company, the FDA made its deci sion based on misleading and incomplete ev idence. Some FDA officials don't contest P&G's assertion that the data weren't reviewed properly by other scientists or that the FDA didn't have complete evidence to base its judgments on. "I can't argue with that, I case could be won or lost largely on the de termination of whether the CDC's findings are valid. "If p&G shoots holes through the CDC, it hurts, hurts badly," he concedes. "It may not be a fatal wound, but I'd bleed." It does In fact appear that a number of Independent researchers, many of whom be came noted for their toxic-shock studies and now are financed by P&G, are convinced that Rely shouldn't have been singled out "I don't (fisagree with P&G at all," says Patrick Schlievert, a microbiologist and as sistant professor at the University of Minne sota medical school,' who h3* received $30,000 in research grants from the com pany. "I have been really opposed to the CDC's handling for a long time," he says, adding, "I think a misjustice was done to P&G... and I think P&G has every right to go after the federal government and seek damages." P&G Is highly unlikely to do that. None theless, factions within the company feel that current evidence is so favorable that P&G ought to seek FDA approval to remar ket Rely-although they advocate bolding Rely off the market, even if approval Is won, until all questions about toxic shock are answered. (The withdrawn tampons are still in storage, at a cost of G million an nually.) Such a showdown, while likely to produce a public-relations flap even greater than the original Rely controversy, could have some marked benefits for P&G. Any company mat uepeuua cut it* *<*< cess on introducing new and improved prod ucts into broad distribution must have full confidence that its procedures for determin ing the safety of those products- are soundly based," says P&G's Mr. Place. P&G feels that it and other companies also must be able to trust government agen cies to follow procedures that won't allow a safe product to be victimized by misinfor mation. Given that, if the FDA and the GDC erred, letting the public know about it might prevent them from doing so again with other P&G products in the future. specialty electric construction products and materials used in hazardous and nonhazardous areas. In the Sixties and early Seventies. Square D grew steadily by acquisitions. The pace slowed in the last half of the Seventies, though at one point, in mid-1978, the com pany went after its biggest takeover target, Globe-Union Inc., a battery maker and elec tronics concern. It was outbid, however, by Johnson Controls Co. Since last July, Square D has made two major acquisitions, Yates Industries Inc., and General Semiconductor Industries Inc., that have taken Square D more deeply into electronics, an area in which the company has indicated it plans more expansion. . Pioneer Corp. Unit Will Stop Producing Uranium Oxide in '82 i*V o Wall 5tiu.t Journal Staff Reporter AMARILLO, Texas-Pioneer Corp. said its Pioneer Nuclear Inc. unit will stop pro duction of uranium oxide in early 1982 be cause of the dosing of the South Texas Conquista project Pioneer said the Conqulsta project, a joint venture of Conoco lac. and Pioneer NuClear, iMtf |/iuvluvcj aWwt 0OO,OOO pounds m uranium oxide annually. Conoco, the proj ect's operator, announced recently that the project will be phased out during the r mainder of this year, with the closing pected early next year. Pioneer said that after the C closing, Pioneer Nuclear won't he tber production of uranium ov of the depressed market fr oifeer Nuclear already r mining and milling 0De mineral belt of (*'' oneer sr*-' Conference Reports URL 03590 Working hazards in the plastics and rubber industries British industry has now had six years to come to terms w ith the Health and Safety at Work Act. Attitudes towards industrial safety had been improving very slowly since the first recorded protest against hazardous working conditions -- the Brvant and May matchgirls strike in 1888. The 1974 Act was therefore an overwhelming step forward since it placed a legal duty on employers to ensure the safety of their workers and also created watchdogs with power to ensure that the law was upheld Strangely enough the trade union movement as a whole had not fought particularly hard for the introduction of this Act. yet as a result of the HSWA worker participation in decision-making is now greater in this area than in any other. Six years on then is probably a good time to review the situation in the plastics and rubber industries -- what has. is. and can be done to improve working conditions. This was the aim of the Health and Safety in the Plastics and Rubber Conference held at the University of Warw ick on 29 September to l October. The first day and a half dealt on the whole with hazards which have already been identified and how to handle them. Dust and noise are often overlooked when considering industrial hazards -- yet dust can cause fires and explosions and noise is rated as the greatest environmental problem in modern industry. Dust explosion research at the Health and Safety Executive is attempting to identify the mechanism of dust explosions. In the workplace, pellets, dust suppressed powders and pastilles have considerably reduced the amount of respirable dust (0.2-l()/im) in the rubber industry. To reduce noise, however, the only solution is redesign machinery adding as much damping as possible to slow dow n impact. For safe handling of hazardous materials and also to establish fire safety in storage areas, it is essential first to assess the exact nature of the risks and then establish a procedure for coping with fires and other hazards which is clearly understood by all those working in the area. The hazards associated w ith moving machinery are probably the most straightforward to deal w Ith. Sensible design is again very important -- the removal of dangerous parts could eliminate the need for guards. UK legislation on safeguarding machinery is the trend setter in Europe. In one case, however, it will be necessary to postpone any action until machinery designers can cope with the required criteria. The BPF horizontal moulding machine code of practice proposed that progressive mechanical restraints should be obligatory by I9K2. Howev er. designers are finding this difficult to comply with. Toxicity was described by one speaker as "the property of a chemical substance to cause adverse effects in human beings as a result of industrial exposure arising from skin contact, inhalation or ingestion'. Aery Ion it rile has. for some tune, been suspected of causing cancer and research studies on both rats ant! groups of workers do not detract from existing suspicion that it is a human carcinogen -- although the evidence is not conchi-iv e. A new control limit of 2 ppm t time -weighted for an eight hour ilav) w ill be enforceable hv Mas |')M. Other sectors also have their problems and ease studies were reported of respiratory, skin and eye irritation from toluene di-isocyanate, respiratory diseases from PVC and carbon black, skin irritation from epoxy resins and the now welldocumented story of bladder cancer in the rubber industry caused by phenyl beta napthylaminc. Fumes from polymer processing can also represent a hazard Certain polymers, if processed at temperatures of over 200C will evolve carbon monoxide, formaldehyde or acrolein In most of these situations the solution proferred was to isolate the worker from the contaminant. However, an interesting solution has been devised at RAPRA to reduce rubber curing fumes. The problem is eliminated at source by modify ing the compound formulation and curing condition-. The next section of papers dealt with identification, measurement and control of hazardous substances. Epidemological studies would seem at present to be the onlv reliable technique used to identify new hazards. Once they have been identified measurement and control is essential via some type of sampling technique. When setting up a sampling process it is important to distinguish between the different types of Threshold Value Limit. Some materials have ceiling designa tions which must not be exceeded and for others the timeaverage concentration over an eight-hour period must not exceed a stated value. In addition to protecting their workers, industrv also has a responsibility to safeguard the environment, as pointed out by Dr Olivers of Loughborough L'niversity. The main airborne hazards were identified as carbon dioxide and chlorofiourocarbons on a global scale and sulphur dioxide, photochemical smog and toxic substances on a local scale Odours can be a much more difficult problem. The human nose is more sensitive than analytical instruments so it is useless trying to identify noxious fumes analytically. Detection thresholds can be verv low--0.00()2 ppm in the case of trimethylamine -- and the only solution is to incorporate into the factory design a suitable system for elimination Possible water pollution should also be taken into account w hen designing a factory as this can be an expensiv e problem. Local authorities have the power to impose high treatment charges on factories who pollute the sewerage systems. It is likely that next year a national notification scheme for new substances will come into force whereby manufacturers will need to show, before marketing a substance, that they haw done all thev can to prove it is not harmful Industry will a No be required to submit to the government information related to toxic and other hazardous properties The last session of the conference was concerned with education and regulation. The importance of ensuring that all workers from board level dow n to the shop floor were aware of their responsibilities towards health and safety was emphasized hv Dr Cartwriuht. Health and safety aspects should be written into everv job specification. The art of ensuring workers complied with safety rcgulai i< ms was discussed by Ms Emery of the Argyll and Clyde Health Board, who has carried out recently a campaign on s.iktv PLi'iiC' ar,ii Ruhhcr Itiu-inaii'indl rx^ruhcr spectacles. Research had shown self-esteem and procure from peer groups to he the major factors causing workers to dis regard safety regulations. Poster campaigns, which arc widely relied on. prosed to he ineffective, as did campaigns based on discipline or fear Gentle persuasion was needed to motivate workers towards the correct behaviour. Ms Emery had found the most effective campaigns so far had been those with an emotional appeal. ...... Attitudes of manaecrs towards their responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work Act seemed to vary . Some ^crs fcjt thal the long-term economic interests of industry were not being taken into consideration by those administering the Act Mr Lowe (IC1 Ltd) stressed it w as important to find a risk lesel for hazards which was socially acceptable hul at the v-me time economically viable. PRI President Steve Gibbs, however, stated a firmer commitment. He declared that mere compliance with the Health and Safety at Work Act was not sufficient. Managers needed to ensure the best possible working conditions over and above HSWA standards without too adversely affecting profitability. Mr Gee. of the General and Municipal Workers I'nion. understandably challenged the cost effectiveness argument. No risk was acceptable if workers healih was endangered Mr Gee defended his union's policy of informing members as soon as a substance was suspected to he harmful. Adequate monitoring of workers health was essential and he recom mended the plastics industry should set up some framework to help smaller companies with healih research as the BRMA did for the rubber industry. If the success of a conference can be judged bv the number of delegates, this meeting -- oversubscribed with over 21)0-- was very successful. Or mayhe success should be judged bv ihc liveliness of the discussion created among the delegates -- another factor much in evidence over ihc three davs All of w hich seems to suggest that health and safety matters w ill still be a controversial topic for some years to come. Preprints of the conference papers are available from the PKI Publications Department at 16 { 12 PRI members) plus 40p p-xtage. URL 03591 Engineering properties of polymers --their measurement and application R J Loneragan The Polymer Properties Group held their ninth research meeting at the Zoological Society of London on 18 September 1980. when 74 delegates were presented with 14 papers on current work in progress. The day was divided into two sessions; the first, chaired by Dr J P Berry, director (and chief executive) of the Rubber and Plastics Research Association, dealt with property determirtations while the afternoon was devoted mainly to papers concerning design in the light of the rather special properties associated with polymeric materials. The latter session was chaired by Dr A A Challis. Director of the Polymer Engineering Directorate (of the SRC), who also summed up the proceedings by drawing attention to the fact that, although there had been much progress in this field over the last ten years and the papers presented highlighted the current activity, there was a continuing need for research and development on the specific requirements for successful design using materials with such complex properties as polymers. The first paper by G Sandilands dealt with the available methods for the determination of internal stresses in injection mouldings. There was not yet complete agreement between the various techniques but stress distribution profiles were consistent. The need to take a broad overview when investigating failures of moulded components while paying detailed attention to the determination of failure criteria under various specified conditions was emphasized by L W Turner. K Thomas pointed out that measurement of distortion of injection moulded plaques had indicated that control bv cavhv sensors led to greater consistency in component quality than by injection unit control alone. While D G M Wright showed that the effect of moulding parameters on product properties could be predicted from the results of tests on laboratorv specimens. Differentia! Thermal Analysis (which was rapid and needed only a very small sample) was ihe subject dealt with by :r<0 S N Lawandy. He showed it could be used to predict optimum melt temperature for achieving maximum mechanical proper ties in mouldings from a given hatch of material. M A Wilding proposed a model based on an Ey ring act i\ a ted rate process for the prediction of the creep behaviour of ultrahigh modulus polyethylene. Some doubt was expressed as to Mts applicability to randomly oriented and amorphous materials. The results to date of a study by creep strain monitoring and acoustic emission (supported by optical and scanning electron microscopy) of damage mechanisms in CSM/polvester com posite were presented by M G Phillips. Contrary to expectation, initial creep rupture tests revealed no significant distinction between results in air and in water. J Lancaster described a new accelerated wear test for specially formulated composite materials which predicted satisfactorily the behaviour of aerospace control bearings. The results highlighted the drastic effect of environment on the wear rate of these materials. The need for materials data and design procedures relevant to rapid loading conditions was described by A F Johnson, w ho offered a pseudo-elastic model w hich could provide a route to effective design calculations over a wide ranee of rates of loading. M Akay dealt with processing-morphologv-propcrtv interactions in rod-embossed polypropvlene tape, and R Dunk reported recent work on environmental stress cracking of thermoplastics and concluded that the usual limiting strain criterion w as perturbed bv interna! stress. The implications of low' temperature crystallization of natural rubber for bridge bearing design were discussed by A Stevenson, while W S Carswell detailed work (under wav) on the response under various loading configurations of filament wound glass/poly ester tubes containing cut-outs. Finally. D J Rice reviewed 30 failure theories for GRP and presented static biaxial failure envelopes for four glass-resin composites. URL 03592 Risky Business SO -TT> Behind every successful manufac turer these days Is a good lawyer. The murky evolution of product liability law has sent corporate managers scurrying to the most recent law re ports, engineers back to the drawing board to try for the inevitably elusive riskless product and the cost of prod uct liability insurance often prohibi tively high. Now the Commerce De partment and Congress are looting into ways to reverse the trend that be gan In the mid-1970s toward Increased burdens cm manufacturers. The problem is one that affects not only manufacturers and insurers, but consumers as well. They are, after all, the ones who nav higher prices so their more feckless fellows may be compensated for unreasonable prod uct usage. Cases of Justice run amok are infamous. There is, for example, the Maryland teenager who dumped cologne cm a lit candle in order to give It a scent and collected damages from the perfume company because it didn't warn her about the fire she caused. Or the Oklahoma man who re ceived 1600,000 from a glue manufac turer even though he failed to heed flammability warnings. The warning or the glue can called for opening win dows, but because there were none to open in the man's workroom, he won damages for his bums. As with other torts, liability in product cases is determined in state courts, using state precedents and statutes to determine the causation of harm. Jurors establish comparative negligence levels and determine the amount of damages. When courts in states such as Cali fornia began switching the burden of proof to toe manufacturing defendant isn't insurance, but reforming the law. One option is to allow the states to continue setting their own standards of liability. But in Pennsylvania, Colo rado and Washington, the notion that manufacturers should be held abso lutely liable despite user recklessness has become finniy entrenched; with several more states tending in that di rection, a more logical tort system seems unlikely to come from the states acting independently. A second way is for the federal government to force a uniform system on the states, a proposal for which will be on the House agenda after the convention break. A third alternative is to provide states with a model code reforming the tort law that they can adopt as they please. The third tack, which has the ad vantage of leaving much local respon sibility for tort law, is the one taken by the Commerce Department's Uni form Product Liability Act. This code attempts properly to blame the party in the better position to avoid the dam age. Its most significant sections would establish standards of responsi bility for manufacturers in the four most frequent types of defect cases. In two types of claims manufacturers would be in particularly hot water; those involving construction defects that result in a mlsmanufactured item and those involving breach of an ex press warranty. The idea here is that sellers should be expected to make a consistent product and to live up to a promise made about their product. But the buyer would have to beware in cases Involving defects in entire product line design and failures of manufacturers to warn about potential dangers. This fault standard would not ana awarding huge sums lo plaintiffs, industry was hit with rapidly rising in surance Tttes for its products. For many manufacturers, insurance in creases in the thousands of percent have been common, and some have been unable to find insurers for new, untried products. The House in March passed a bill that would allow compa nies to pool money and information to create a total inhibition on producing new products that are used in inher ently dangerous activities nor would failure to warn about, say, fire dan gers of swallowing open safety pins es tablish producer fault. Whichever method of reforming the tort law is chosen, the important thing to remember is that risk is Inevitable. This is especially so in a society in insure themselves against liability. which innovation is not a luxury, but The Senate is now considering the the bread and butter of our economy. measure. * The law should reflect the reality that The more fundamental problem a riskless society is a chimera. >*> deWwf C*4f' MJfiTEAhO fi\/ - f~\ *_ w Sottpfry /}yj/) Ud/tfk Don t hang up H>r/q\ your coffee mug. cz J3 1 C_._'OJ> NEW YORK (fit) - pmpitra ittityJnting caffe* to fi*ar of tbe panoses, it's too soon to ton|ip your coffee meglot good, tcfrnrcbenfry. The latest evidence may be mitWarttng, they explain, and three more studies on the disuse -- wtose occurrence has triced is the pot Itween -- areoo the way. Tbe moat recent study, by Dr. Brian MacMshm and ccfleeguee at Harvard^tgpwiop a link between coffee drinkagand pancreatic cancer, tie fonrtk leading cave of cancer deaths. 'st'-V! " -1 j Tbe Harvard researchers reported Thursday that people who frisk a* orach as two cov oi coffee a day nearly doable their chancer ct the hum, and three-cop a fry imbibers nearly triple their rife 1*\ TwoTnosthaearag.aUuiwialty tiMarytondjtidysaMdrinkingfrctfietnatedcoffee was a risk factor for pancreatic cancer, akB| with frisking wine and occupational sunn to dip deaning or gaaoiiira. But MacMaus waned that his molts mastbe confined elsewhere before scientists try to pin down any purported cancer-caasiM ingredient in coffee The celprit probably is nti caffeine, since no timiiai*liak was found win tea. v And tbe American Cancer Sodety^aid it was *100 early for any kind of dear-cut coodosioQ to be drawn.'* ; ` " Strafaeexaminingtbe rifr factonMrf pancreaticcancer areander way at the Universi ty of Southern California, the American Health Fonndatioa in New York asd Johns Hopkins University. -> ; , * All these investigations are aimed at explaining why canes of pancreatic cancer have $ nearly tripled in the last thrff d*?adf Tbe American Cancer Society estimates there will be 22,QM deaths from the disease this year, compared to 13,675 deaths in 1960 and I^STfr 19M. Pancreatic eancsr is efrodalfy hard to treat becasae the pancreat, a flat tfand behind , tbe stomach that secretes a digtetlTrtiace, is so weU-hidden that the cancer usually is 1 far advanced by the time it's discovered. The disease also is hard to diagnose, and some patients die of it without ever knowing tbe^sactoaaseoftbdrmalignancy. _ , A major problem for iwarcbcrs is separating tbe effect of coffee from that oi ciga rette smoking already known to be faked to pancreatic ameer, Dc. Tbooas Mad, who beads the USC study, laid Friday. . .. "The fact is tbfre are my tew people who are heavy smokers who frnt also drink ^ coffee, and people tiho don't smoke tend to drink small amounts of coffee. It means we . have to be very careful about diseotangUng the two," le said. Another difficulty is that studies lib MacMahotfs and Mack's can establish only a 'link" or "association" between some habit and some fraa, not prove that one causes tbe other. Scientists thes most figure out why tbe fak ocean. The studies also are occasionally contradictory.Tb Maryland study by Drs. Roey Lin and Irving Sealer found wine drinking raised the rf* of cancer. Bot IfrcMahon found drinkers of alcohol were slightly lea likely to get tick, atthongh tbe effect coold have been due to chance. Under suspicion a possible cancer-causers are some of tbe solvents used to extract1 caffeine from coffee beam for decaffeinated coffee. * Aid caffeine, although not suspected in current stufiea, has been proposed by tbe MX Food and Drag Administration for review because af evidence it causes birth defects in rats. MacMabon said he has stopped drinking ootfee himself, bet iu the absence of more evidence cannot advise others what to < -- So individual coffee drinkers must decide tor themselves whetherto give op tbe beverage, just as they must decide whether to smoke, drive a car a take any of life's other cboosable risks. "1 wish there was an easy answer," MacMahon said. "You pays your money and m talus your chances." /TV I* - *___ ---------------------- I- I_____ ***# Sen. Dole released after kidney surgery WASHINGTON (AP) - Sea Bob Dole, RKaH i returned borne Saturday after 22 days, in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where be underwent a ax-bom kidney stooe operation Tbe senator was picked op attbe hospital and escorted to bis home in tbe Watergate apartments by bis wife, Kliaheth Hanford Dole, a special assistant to President Reaaan for nobiic liaison An aide to tbe senator, Bill Kats, said Dote wiB try to preside over tbe start pf bearings Monday by the Senate Finance Committee, of which he is chairman, on Reagan's propositi to redact income tax rates by 77.5 percent over three years to stimulate tbe economy and curb inflation Dote also will be working with the Senate Agriculture Committee, of which be is a member, on food stamp legislation and tbe But Kats said that on tbe advice of his doctors, Dote will reserve time for several boon of rest each day for at least tbe first week. His doctors have said it may take four months for Dote to regain full strength. Hie senator entered Walter Reed early Feb. 70 after be said be "wake up in the middle of toe night and felt UkeJdWn hit by a two-by-four," Later that day, be un derwent lengthy surgery that was compli cated by the fact Dole has only one kidney because of wounds attend in World War H* . Kats said Dole recovered from surgery without compHqitkm, , During his hospital stay. Dole conferred with Senate leaden and nuance.Committoe staff members about Reagan's econom ic proposals. Tbe president rated Dote at Walter Reed last Thursday for about 20 minutes, and told reporters toe senator was "up and about and doing well" L. EXECUTE HER England's KliiMheth I tinned a warrant for the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587. URL 03594 i i t No appointment necessary tor five spring hair flair values AN using DirecttvesTMhalr care products. No appointment neefessary. Selected stylists only. Shampoo, styling.. 6.50 Shampoo and Ampoule treatment with styl ing' ......................... 6.50 Shampoo, cut and styl ing ................ 811 Shampoo Ampoule treatment, cut and styl ing ......................... $13 Permanent wave, sham poo, cut, styling,, 22.50 Beauty Solon Call Waterbury 7571131, ext. 4326 c Xl THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Thundi;, March 12, 198! Surgical Mistakes Caused Complications For 36 of2,500People in Hospital Study o OJ Chicago Utility " Holders to Vote In Authorized S! JNWIND IN SECLUSION taoffto vwywtodWandtxduWnwcation to. Our hjpWy wspocred monthly mm a a connotmu'i guxfe to unapoiad to, providing aiaeuthtoa indapandam m on paacaful mountain aanetuariaa. wrv dad countr/akto ratraato and anchanting da va ragularty uncovat hara and abroad, rrmodation offerings, ambiance, food, stoff mrvica, rataa and racraational divartoona ri daacdbad in ivaiv data!. TwdM monthly na, *29. Ovaraaaa. **.} Satisfaction vttaad or aubacrvdon pic* ntondmi. 3^.c Hideaw'ii^^cport Pubiiahad MontWy by Harpar Asaociataa Sox 66 Fairfa* Station, VA 22039 Safari Adventures... UND6LAD TRAVEL, INC. Wngfrt Straff. Oaff A waffport, CT OSSSO USA (203) 2SS41M naaaa aand toaffnaf to: Cty -------------------------------- Btata Zip. Tttoff Agff* wsj>-i> By Mkbab. Waldholi that generally provide the basts for mal Suff fupun*rf TaxW*4. Stmst towum. practice litigation. Moreover, two-thirds of Ok*Wall Stwkct Joubmal Sl Going to the hasp!til may be hazardous the patients reviewed came t&Brigbam and CMCAGO -- Conunoowealt to your health. ^ Women's Hospital after suffering the mfs- shareholders will be asked at A year-tong stndy tins* hospital ideati- tep at another facility. annual meeting to approve d fied 36 patients out o12JD0 admitted for sur The restarchil? found that mast of the rtaed common shares to 250 ml! gery who suffered mild to severe eonpUci- rrmptfr-attens were due to poor judgment by pation of a new stock offering s lions solely because of mistakes by physi the surgeon. Such problems included reach year. cians. Another study food that 36% of hos ing wrong diagnoses, delaying needed sur-' fbe offering, for which a pital patients surveyed ted problems tied to tbetr treatment. , i gery, performing unnecessary or overly ex-' tensive surgicaj procedures, or ignoring hasn't been ret, would be the ty's ninth since 1970, a tpokesr Of the 36 patiests dted in the first tody, 20 died to the hospital, and, the study says, 11 of those deaths were "directly attribut able to error." Of the 16 who survived, five had a serious physical impairment that could have bees avoided. Researchers calculated that the surgfcaT mishaps increased the oast of care to endh patient an average of 340,000. For the pa tients vbo died, charges for faospttaiizstiao averaged $1,419 a day. While those who sur vived incurred an average daily cost of S7. trouble rigns because of overconfidence or misplaced optimism. Is an interview. Or. Nathan P. Coach, one of the study's authors and an emociate professor at Harvard Medteai School, mid a. typical problem was caused by a doctor who removed mere of a pattern's eaneeroos or gan than necessary. "Ninety percent of me errors were those of unnecessary, ccutra-todieated or technically defective surgical ac tivity." Dr. Couch wrote to the stady'. current 126 million limit o shares was approved to 1977. t hoc of those shares are eu served; the rest are either fc marked for a variety of purpos Proceeds from any stock c hefpjay for Oommseweafth B plant denstraeticn, wperted 19.7 button between now and 1 psiy's proxy statement aid. / $6.7 button would require out bom a variety of securities Costs for the attire group of patients vbo In another study ta the same tone of the statement said. Also, about $7 suffered mishaps was 1.3% of the hospital's Journal, researchers found that one of three he needed to refinance first m total patient billings for the year, which was patients admitted to a hospital for ndusurgi- and loans maturing at the end about $133 million. cal care suffered an unexpected complica Shareholders also are expr The study was conducted by a team of in tion. While these problems were far more doee resolutions calling for a) vestigators at Brigham and Women's Hospi common than those encountered tn the sur construction at nuclear power tal in Boston, and appears in this week's is gery study, they were much less revere. directors to investigate "the sue of the New England Journal of Medi cine. The researchers said that none of the cases they looked at appeared to be due to negligence, and, therefore, aren't the type The study conducted by researchers from me Boston University Medical Center sur vej^d patterns at a writing hospital, which wasn't Identified, over five months. The re mismanagement by compart} The second proposal claims tx estimated load growth. ov< plants and damaged the comp health. searchers discovered that M% of fl5 ps* (The antinuclear resolution i Blue Bell Inc. Expects dents suffered some type of problem asm- tatroduticc by seven retigkx dated with the care they were receiving. Id tour individuals. A rinrilar pr Fiscal 2nd Quarter Net 9% of the cases reviewed, the Incident vis feared last year. Three of considered major in that tt threatened the groups and the four individual patient's life or produced oonflderabte disa of the proposal on managem To Decline ,40% to 45%; bility. la 2% of the eases, tiw resmrrhm wealth has urged holders to said, the was bettered to con both proposes. tribute to the patient's death. S^e Wall truer /ogntt StaffH*p*rUr GREENSBORO. Jl-C- - Blue Bell Inc. said that earnings forte fiscal second quar ter ending March 31 will be down about 40% to 45% from $214 million, or ILS7 a share, a year earlier. The maker of blue jeans and other ap parel attributed the projected decline pri marily to weakening European currencies. The company previously said that soft market conditions la Europe would result in reduced wort schedules at its European fac tories and affect margins la the current quarter. L. Kinney Mann, president and dried ex ecutive officer, said that comparisons tn the prior year for Buns* an expected to im prove is the June quarter. He also said that operating earnings ta the OB.. Canada and Australia are expeeted to exceed year-ear lier levels for the March Quarter and the re mainder of the year. in fiscal 1969, ended Sept 39. Blue Ben's earnings rose fractionally to 167.9 mtthoii, or $5.40 a teare, Bern the prior year's MM mutton, or S6JI a Bare, u a sates increase of 16% to $L4 hUUon from $U3 button, te tv first Quarter ended Dec. H, ean- Dr. Couch mid many of the problems as sociated with surgery could be avoided if surgeons were more wining to discuss diffi culties eeriyco. "But there is a widespread tear that this type of information might eventually he used against the physician in malpractice legation," he sakL Jannock Ltd. Steel Unit TORONTO-Jsnnock Ud. sakl its Steel Tube Ud. unit wHI spend r atlUae (Canadian) at ooe of its mills is Brampton, Ontario, to begin production late thfc year of electric resistance welded tubing and cas ings lor use is the oil industry. Production will he is a Hkttttoe to the company1! sew CM million nUB boot for pro duction of laigi sine hollow structural sec tions. i, Jannock, through its mbridlartef, Is to- gaged to sugar refining, brick manufactur ing and production of steel tatong and elec trical parts. Jostens Buys Dt Moves Into Mat For Business Pr* S**Wall tiucr Sousmal ` MDiNKAFOUS-Jcstens quired Durand Corp., a prir. cago-based concern, for weren't disclosed. The maker of elaa rings, other products arid the acq first move Into the bustiwor teL Durand, whteh makes for tad other products, ted JMO.MO on miss of $13.5 m Jcstesi skid. Fur the fiscal} tk MB, Jostens earned t $3.16 a share, os sates of $29 Mamorondum from FRED DOVELL TO: SUBJECT: "There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things" Machiavelli, The Prince. or as Pogo said it equally as well, "We have met the enemy, and they are us," URL 03596 I Opinion JANUARY 196 c 30 O to tn to Where science is uncertain, cooperation is needed The Supreme Court struggled with the so-called benzene case for a long time, almoBt its entire 1870-1980 term, before deciding Anally to avoid the real issue Actually, there are several issues involved in thie case at that vague front where legal consider ations confront scientific evidence or lack of scien tific evidence. But the prime issue that was to have been resolved in the ease of the Industrial Onion Department (AFL-CIO ) versus American Pet roleum Institute was how much retaliatory agen cies must consider cost-benefit factors in making rules. The court chose to ignore that Issue. It must now wait, apparently, until the coke ovens emis sions case later this term to deal with cost-benefits and regulatoiy rules. Implicit in that question is the relative impor tance of benzene. It is a basic chemical. Should that be a consideration in a regulatoiy agency's attitude toward It? It Is clear, for example, that vinyl chloride would never have reached the mar ket place had the Toxic Bubstanoes Control Act (TSCA) been In place those many years ago. In stead, industry and the regulators reached a work ing understanding that allows the huge industry to continue, while workers appear to be adequately protected. That is not to say that the same questions arise over benzene that were confronted in the vinyl chloride regulation. For one thing there 1b the evi dence of the effectE of the chemical. For another, there are the apparent inconsistencies In the Oc cupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) benzene exposure rules. For example,why are servioe station attendants excluded? A benzene exposure limit of 10 ppm had been long accepted despite evidence that benzene at higher exposures was linked to leukemia. But when a study at an Ohio Pliofilm plant indicated an excessive number of leukemia cases at what were reported to be lower exposures, OSHA issued an emergency standard. That emergency standard, challenged in court, never saw the light of day. And the data from the Pliofilm plant subsequently revealed much higher exposures to benzene, nevertheless, the agency went ahead with a permanent standard of 1 ppm maximum exposure. That standard was overturned by a Federal court In New Orleans, which held that the agency must weigh the costs of meeting Its proposed rules against the benefits derived. OSHA argues that its Congressional mandate Is solely to protect the worker, not to be involved in economic balancing acts. They have & point. The problem is that there is no check and bal ance against that position. That is, who looks out for the other side. Our form of government has prospered on a system of checks and balanoes. But the only immediate check on regulators is the Administration Itself. This is a dilemma for the regulated as well os the regulators. The result has been confrontation in courts. And the courts have been ill-equipped or reluctant to de%l with the real issues. In the benzene case, the Supreme Court did not really confront the scientific issues. Four justices held that OSHA was perfectly within its rights to enforce a lowered exposure standard. Four others argued that the agency didn't have enough evi dence to lower the standard. And Justice Rehnquiet held the judiciously unique position that the Occupational Safety and Health Act was uncon stitutional. That still leaves open the question of how much evidence is enough to mark an agent carcinogenic Ho one wants to have to count dead bodies, which. In essence, is what happened in the vinyl chloride 0686. The truth is that many questions remain about carcinogenicity and testing for carcinogens 8hort-term tests, such as the Ames Salmonella tests, remain limited, despite the fact that a battejy of such tests Is now available. Moreover, bioassays on animals are dependent on the protocols and the care with which such tests are performed Some tests are proven more valid than others. In addition, some basic questions about carcinogenic ity remain unanswered. For example, why, and how, and is there a threshold, and what about cumulative factors? The truth is that science has a lot more to do before it can let the courts make these kinds of decisions Meanwhile we must have effective con trols against exposure to carcinogenic agents. Buch controls can only come about through cooperative efforts of industry, unions, scientists and the regulators.--Irvin Schwartz 5 A TTJ. PUBLICATION VOL 8 VO. 1 brobiax. Mltorlal Director Malcolm W. fuiey ditar Irvin J. Schwartz lulitut Mltor Susan 8truthers Washington editor Dorothy Smith Art Dimeter Charles S Garb 0oatrlbstlB| Bditors William Bennetts Joseph Hixson Grey Weaver Soar* of Advisory Mttetii John Amey, PhD. John Babcock. PhD Allred B. Brawn. PhD. Russel] Drago, PhD. W Alee Jordan David Sheets. Ph.D. 2n ABMSRVTXATXCnr AMD PRODUCTION Puuinhsr Raymond K. Lewis Mnstor of RmtatUts Leonore Temliak Production Aaslstaat Susan Engslmeyer Marketing Bervlees Manager Joan R. Balsam Readers' lenrlM norence Xsola HiwM Uttmlsttea John S. Pragale Assistant Circulation Manager Judith Giordano Dmaiaeea Manager Charles lndlch aaiWtl CfeeeSeel Wees te puMMed nwnMy Or HU Commurucetioni Inc.. U3 Thud Ave.. N.Y.. N.Y. 10017. TOmMhm 212-we-4S00 1M0 by leSeMflS I Neva. Ml ny^a iminmti BuMengMniJn ____ eieneend Cwada We. $40. tM oops* in Va U.B and Canada 13; eMe- Sea *(. Appiiestion k mail at Conraietf CiwuisSen rea a pendme m Eat Svow4eurt. P* l$S0i. Posi- *uear. Send toon SETS lo emulation Dept. taSweetei Cfcilea Heae. t Third am.. n.y.. n>. iooit ,ABP JANUARY 1061 Oonr Ooaptter chips, a revolution la chemical ualyils For analytical chemistry, the introduction of microelectronics has osused revolutionary changes in the manner, speed and depth of chem ical analysis. And the revolution is still going on. Improved micro processor-baaed instruments for chemical analysis are lowering ooste. arid improving capabilities and ease of operations. Patent rights: When dees an employee own an Invention? The rights of employer and employee to an invention made hy an employee during employment gives rise to some prickly problems. Was a contract entered into between the parties assigning inventions from employee to employer? If not, was the employee specifically "hired to invent," or was the employee merely a general employee? If a general employee, did he make the invention on company time, using company materials or labor? The issues are examined in this piece by a noted patent attorney. i Mtb ssfetyi home eets at rales All the public turmoil ever occupational and environmental effects from chemlaal hazards appears now to be filtering down to the labora tory level. 06HA is preparing a set of criteria for safe operation of chemical labs, including guidelines for eontrollng exposure to car cinogens. the NRG has prepared a new report that offer# detailed pracooee for all types of laboratories where chemicals are used. IV Crystal Ball s$m Washington boosting BBS. blasting regu lation Bow will the new Reagan administration impact on the life of the industrial chemist? This analysis of the new administration's ex pected policies toward research and development spending and regulatory reform """*" some good news and some bad news. AO Why does the UJ. lag in innovation? The results of a Conservation Foundation study examining a per ceived lag In technological innovation in U.8. industry are pre sented here. The stud? lays the blame partly on government regu lation and recommends regulatory reforms and information gathering. 1# Masasdons wastes at Lon What axe the attests? This |ii niinnHsimn of a stud? done by a panel appointed by New York state to leeJew the scientific studies of the health effects of a chemical waste dump at Love contains some criticisms of government agencies and the original studies which conclude that the chemical dump adversely affected the health of some Love Canal residents. > V Opinion Reader's Respond Meetings 0 Hews; Chemlcals/Squlpmsi lO News RB Washington Wire M PMN Roundup 1 Patents Review M Research Reports M Books T Readers' Servloe Card Be Classified URL 03598 Opinion URL 03599 JANUARY 1961 Where science is uncertain, cooperation is needed The Supreme Court struggled with the eo-called benzene ease for a long tune, almost Its entire 1970-1980 term, before deciding finally to avoid the real Issue. Actually, there are several issues Involved in this oase at that vague front where legal consider ations oonfront scientific evidence or lack of scien tific evidence. But the prime issue that was to have been resolved in the case of the Industrial Union Department (APL-CIO) versus American Pet roleum Institute was how much regulatoiy agen cies must consider cost-benefit factors In making rules. The court chose to ignore that issue. It must now wait, apparently, until the ooke ovens emis sions case later this term to deal with cost-benefits and regulatory rules. Implicit In that question is the relative impor tance of benzene. It Is a basic chemical. Should that be a consideration in a regulatory agency's attitude toward it? It is clear, for example, that vinyl chloride would never have reached the mar ket place had the Toxic Substances Control Act (TOCA) been in place those many years ago. In stead, industry and the regulators reached a work ing understanding that allows the huge industry to continue, while workers appear to be adequately protected. That is not to say that the same questions arise over benzene that were confronted in the vinyl chloride regulation. For one tiling there is the evi dence of the effects of the chemical. For another, there are the apparent inconsistencies In the Oc cupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA' benzene exposure rules. For example, why are service station attendants excluded' A benzene exposure limit of 10 ppm had been long accepted despite evidence that benzene at higher exposures was linked to leukemia. But when a study at an Ohio Pliofilm plant indicated an excessive number of leukemia cases at what were reported to be lower exposures, OSHA issued an emergent standard. That emergency standard, challenged In court, never saw the light of day. And the data from the Pliofilm plant subsequently revealed much higher exposures to benzene, nevertheless, the agency went ahead with a permanent standard of 1 ppm maximum exposure. That standard was overturned by a Federal court in New Orleans, which held that the agency must weigh the costs of meeting its proposed rules against the benefits derived. OSHA argues that its Congressional mandate is solely to protect the worker, not to be involved In economic balancing acta. They have a point. The problem is that there la no check and bal ance against that position. That is. who looks out for the other side. Our form of government has prospered on a system of checks and balances. But the only immediate check on regulators is the Administration itself. This is a dilemma for the regulated as well as the regulators. The result has been confrontation In courts. And the courts have been ill-equipped or reluctant to de^l with the real issues. In the benzene case, the Supreme Court did not really oonfront the scientific issues. Four justices held that OSHA was perfectly within its rights to enforce a lowered exposure standard. Four others argued that the agency didn't have enough evi dence to lower the standard. And Justice Rehnquist held the Judiciously unique position that the Occupational Safety and Health Act was uncon stitutional. That still leaves open the question of how much evidence is enough to mark an agent carcinogenic No one wants to have to count dead bodies, which, in essence, Is what happened In the vinyl chloride case. The truth Is that many questions remain about carcinogenicity and testing for carcinogens. Short-term tests, such as the Ames Salmonella tests, remain limited, despite the fact that a bat tery of such tests is now available. Moreover, bioassays on animals are dependent on the protocols and the care with which such tests are performed Some tests are proven more valid than others. In addition, some basic questions about carcinogenic ity remain unanswered. For example, why, and how, and is there a threshold, and what about cumulative factors? The truth is that sdenoe has a lot more to do before it can let the courts make these kinds of decisions. Meanwhile we must have effective con trols against exposure to carcinogenic agents Such controls can only come about through cooperative efforts of lndustiy, unions, scientists and the regulators.--Irvin Schwartz 5