Document wrm6Y9gO5NBBYGaB8gxZ418bV

THE NEW YORK TIMES, TUESDAY. APRIL IS, 1914 TO CANCER IN MICE 'Liver Disease Is Produced j in Vinyl Chloride Study By JANE E. BRODY An industry-sponsored study of vinyl chloride has indicated ; that when mice are exposed j to the amount of the chemical ; that workers are currently per mitted to inhale, the animals develop a rare fatal cancer of the liver that has been found! in 12 vinyl chloride workers. Vinyl chloride, an explosive gas, is used to make polyvinyl chloride, the basis for much of modern plastics. Some 6,500 ! workers aefi involved in i the vinyl chloride-polyvinyl | chloride industry. In addition, I vinyl chloride has been used as a propellant in some aerosol j| consumer products, including > hair sprays and pesticides. | The industry's laboratory i finding, presented yesterday to (a private briefing for Govern- ; ment and industry officials, | raises questions about the I safety of the current Federal ! emergency occupational stan- [ dard of 50 parts of vinyl chloride per one million parts , of air. I At this level of exposure for |seven hours a day over seven i months, several mice in the j study, sponsored by the Manu facturing Chemists Association,; I are reported to have developed j I angiosarcoma, or cancer of the [ I liver. In a previous study. Prof. (Cesare Maltoni of the Cancer Institute in Bologna, Italy, j found the cancer in rats at] levels of 250 parts per million: and higher. j Professor Maltoni's studies to| date have shown no adverse1 effects at 50 parts per million,} and it was partly for this reason that the U.S. Depart-! ment of Labor's Occupational! .Safety and Health Administra-; tion chose 50 parts per million; for the emergency standard. Developed Spontaneously . I John O'Neill, chief of healthl standards development at the; [agency, said yesterday that the : emergency standard would re main until "we have looked, 'closely at the data and seen how good it is." He noted that mice sometimes develop angio-: isarcoma of the liver spon taneously. I Mr. ONeill said that the agency expected to publish in the Federal Register next week ja proposed permanent standard1 'lor vinyl chloride that would ;more closely reflect the judg-, ment of its scientific advisers,! the National Institute for Oc-| cupational Safety and Health.; They and other scientists have said that there can be no safc: level established for exnosurc; to a C3ncer-caus:ng agent, and that workers should not be exposed to any detectable levels of vinyl chloride. The hair sprays in question,' manufactured by Clairol and! Bonat, Inc., are being recalledl [from store shelves. The En-| ;virorimental Protection Agency is expected to release today the brand names of pesticides! containing vinyl chloride. The[ agency said yesterday that all ,23 manufacturers had agreed to substitute a different propellant, and all are being asked to vol untarily recall existing products containing vinyl chloride. The environmental agency is studying what to do about the more than 300 million pounds of vinyl chloride that escape I into the environment each year in the process of plastics manu facturing. Vinyl chloride had been used as an industrial chemical for more than 30 years in this country with relatively little concern about its possible toxic effects. In January, the B. F. Good rich Company announced that four workers in its polyvinyl chloride plant in Louisville, Ky., had developed liver cancer. There are seven cases known at the Louisville plant and five elsewhere. The announcement led to an industrywide search for the possible effects of the chemical. Mass medical evaminations were given at one plant in Niagara Falls. Th latest study, supported ;by the chemists association and 'conducted by Bio-test Labora tories, Inc., in Northbrook, III., !was begun last summer, before ;the Goodrich announcement, in jresponse to early reports of Professor Maltoni's findings. Car Wish Chemical Derails PHILADELPHIA, April 15, (AP) -- A railroad freight car derailed and leaked some of its cargo of vinyl chrloride onto a main road here late last night There were no injuries. Thomas Hopping, a spokes man for Penn Central, sail: "It is noxious. It is falmmable and dangerous. But the situation: [right now is that we have: leverything under control. There ]is no hazard at this point in time as far as the leak is con cerned." The 38,000-gallan-tank car was one of three that de-j railed from a 52-car Penn Cen tral freight. The tanker slid! down an embankment, onto; West River Drive, blocking the' four-lane road. The officials; close it to traffic today. j 23192001 BFG24188