Document wDowMJdGRjZDkbLnz27Ep7jz4

gician Found Monday, February 18,1974 Akron Beacon Journal A 9 seas By JANE E. BRODY Ntw York Tim> Sorvico NEW YORK -- A physician for the B. F. Goodrich Chemi cal plant in Louisville, Ky,, Dr. John L. Creech Jr. exam ines all employes returning to work after an illness. He was struck recently by the larger number of liver ailments among the workers, compared with patients he saw in his private surgical practice. CREECH searched his memory and worker records and discovered that in the last five years, four employes had died of angiosarcoma of the liver, an extremely rare cancer. All the affected work ers. he found,, were directly involved in the production of polyvinyl chloride from vinyl chloride, a gaseous organic chemical known to damage the liver at high concentra tions. Now, there is a report of a fifth death from the disease. The doctor suspected a re lationship between this chemi cal and the illnesses he was seeing in the workers. His suspicions have led the gov ernment to declare an "oc cupational-health" emergency and to seek ways to protect workers. They have also spurred extensive studies by 6Thousands of workers examined9 Federal, industry and other scientists to define the cause of the problem and how ex tensive it may be. Vinyl chloride, an ordoriferous simple molecule of car bon, hydrogen and chlorine, is the foundation for much of the modern plastics industry. Large number of vinyl chlor ide molecules can be joined to from a polymer, a chemi cal chain resembling a bead ed necklace. Some 6,500 workers in 51 American plants and many more thousands of European workers are involved in the production of vinyl chloride or polyvinyl chloride, a white powdery chemical resembling sugar. Thus, w'hen Goodrich offi cials conveyed Creech's ob servations to the National In stitute for Occupational Safe ty and Health (NIOSH) three weeks ago, the situation was regarded as "a serious emer gency to be immediately and fully investigated," Dr. Mar cus M. Key, director of the Institute, told a meeting of la bor and management in Cleveland last week. Accordingly, the Institute, as well as Goodrich and the Manmac'jnng Chemists As sociation, has launched inten sive studtes of thousands of workers -- past and present, dead and alive -- and a vari ety of laboratory animals to determine the nature, extent and cause of illness among vi nyl chloride workers. Although these studies will take many months, and in some cases years, to com plete, at a hearing in Wash ington, NIOSH recommended emergency corrective action to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is considering new reg- 6European industry has studies also' ulations to protect workers exposed to vinyl chloride. THE CURRENT Federal standard allows workers to breathe as much as 500 parts of vinyl chloride per million parts of air, a level that read ily causes liver damage in animals, according to a study published 13 years ago by a Dow Chemical Company sci entist. Although the govern ment did not act upon this finding, several companies, posed to low levels of vinyl including Goodrich, lowered chloride -- lower than the their plant standard to 50 U. S. standard of 500 parts parts per million, one-tenth per million. the permitted level. Prof. Cesare Maltoni of the However, one study showed University of Bologne, who that at certain points of the did the experiment, was to polyvinyl chloride operation, describe his results to a hear workers may be temporarily ing in Washington. exposed to vinyl chloride lev els of up to 1,500 parts per million. In Europe, where 75 pet. of the world's supply of vinyl chloride is produced, signs of liver disease have been found in a large percen tage of exposed workers, ac cording to foreign language reports dating back to the early 1960s. But it took a report in 1970 "With this finding, we have come full cycle, Dr. Irving J. Selikoff remarked at the Cleveland meeting. "We have cancer in the vinyl chloride workers and apparently the identical tumor has been re produced in animals exposed to the chemicals," said Seli koff, who is director of envi ronmental medicine at Mount of an Italian laboratory expe riment to shake up the vinyl chloride industry. Rats ex posed to very high levels of the chemical developed can cers of the skin and lungs. This prompted the Europe an industry to launch its own studies, one of which has re portedly resulted in angiosar coma of the liver in rats ex Sinai School of Medicine here. NONETHELESS, Selikoff and the Institute scientists said they are keeping an open mind about the cause of the problem. Some 50 or 60 differ ent chemicals besides vinyl chloride are used in these plants, and any one of them could turn out to be the cul prit, they said. It is also possible that something pecular to the Louisville workers -- either now or in the past -- ac counts for their susceptibility to this rare tumor. However, Creech, for one, does not think so, "I think when we look we'll find an giosarcoma of the liver all over the world, wherever vi nyl chloride is used," he said. 24078001