Document yQB6o74vLkqOgRoOqyZnoJK3

ALBERT C. CLARK VICE PRESIDENT TECHNICAL DIRECTOR MANUFACTURING CHEMISTS ASSOCIATION 1825 CONNECTICUT AVENUE, N.W. WASHINGTON, D. C. 20009 (202) 483-6126 W. A A February 15, 1974 To the Management Contacts of Companies Sponsoring the Vinyl Chloride Research Program and the Technical Task Group on Vinyl Chloride Research Subject: February 15, 1974 Hearings Occupational Safety and Health Administration Gentlemen: Herewith for your information is a copy of the Manufacturing Chemists Association statement (without at tachments) submitted at subject hearings. If any attach ments are of special interest to you, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us and we will try to provide any except the reprint (A) on the List of Attachments. Sincerely ACC:tp Enclosure cc: Dr. Mr. Dr. Dr. D. P. Duffield D. M. Elliott Tiziano Garlanda K. D. Johnson 000017008 Many Workers Still Face ! Health Peril Despite Law By JANE E. BRODY The recent discovery of fatal sfsrNew standards develop. ... ... . under the Federal law are being P^n?dic topical examinations promulgated by the Departmnent! of . those exPosed- of Labor's Occupational Safety "The act has done a great and Health Administration deal t0 TMProve the worker's (O.S.H.A.) at a rate of only one! perceptions about the situa- a year. At the same time, in-! tin. hut it hasn't yet done dustry is introducing some 400: mutdl to improve the situa- new chemicals each year.! said Anthony Mazzocchi, nearly all of which are untested JegNative director of the Oil, for possible iong-term effects iChemical and Atomic Workers on the workers who handle International Union. To handle "emergencies" likel relevance to human exposure.' !vinyi chloride, the institutel / Rather than recommerti has been forced to divert funds! "safe" exposure levels. Dr and personnel from other es-' Hammond and Dr. Key believe sential but less immediate that industry should adop tasks, such as developing protective work practices tha .standards that might head offi eliminate worker exposure tt other vinyl chlorides before workers succumb to their ef-; all agents--whether or not the; have been proved harmful. fects. i Such work practices weri Last year,- the ordinarily recommended by the institute li,v,er cancer among vinyl 10 workers suffers ajob-related c.uonde workers has, focused illness or injury. The Public them Franklin Wallick of the i sedate and sober director of There is virtually no testing United Automobile Workers,! the institute. Dr. Marcus Key, for 14 cancer-causing Industrie chemicals covered by an emer renewed attention of govern- Health Service estimates that ment, labor, industry and prolonged on-the-job exposure medicine' on the thousands of t toxic chemicals, dusts, noise, known, suspected and as yeti he,at- ,cold' radiation and other of combinations of substances who wrote a book called, "The that by themselves may be American Worker: An Endan harmless but become deadly gered Species," said that for the when combined, although a most part workers are still leading occupational hazard-- :"the human guinea pigs for in exploded with exasperation: : genev standard issued las `N.I.O.S.H. is not expanding, spring. The institute advocate: it is shrinking. It is getting a similar approach to viny the proverbial meat ax. . . / chloride, a gaseous chemica Our present laboratory space; in the plastics industry that ir unsuspected health hazards, n^its in ^ death of at 1^1 asbestos--is known to greatly dustrial processes." isn't even adequate for any: the last month has been linker that face 63 million working, 100,000 workers and the de-| !ncrea?e .,ht> rlk of lung can- In interviews last week, la kind of research. It is sub-; to angiosarcoma of the liver Americans. i velopment of disabling occupa- Despite the passage three tional diseases in 390,000 more.; years ago of the Occupational . RS*arCrers In, occupational health believe that countless; afetj mid Health Act, granting thousandsof others succumb to; cer only in workers who smoke bor, industry, government and cigarettes. university sources agreed that "The long-term effects of thej although the occupational vast majority of chemical and' health law was a giant and phy.sical a-gen. ts used in indus-1 essential step in the right di standard. . . . We have been: frozen on hirings for most of our existence, and we are; .losing key staff right and left ! because we don't have the an extremely rare cancer, ir nine workers at four differen plants. A further problem in gain ing worker protection undei -very American the right to insidious job-reiated diseases! trj kava notbeen pro,ved- a,nd rection, the realities of current grade points to promote them. the act has been the slownes: vork without job-induced not yet discovered by science.! Prachcally no research is be- Administration funding have 1. . . I don't think N.I.O.S.H. of the Labor Department i: hreats to life and health, the Industry sources ' estimate' ""tu0ctfed *Jnn Ut * f much-needed is a viable organization at this issuing new exposure standard: Jfcen^fjverwheimmg majonty of are covert j M- Stillman a"d Dr- Susan M.( Unndd,er the act, the National vorters ,y the are not yet protected law's provisions For mbvediccaolmpdreehoeanrrsmiveenntfs,,comwJphwaicn*hy ack of this protection, hun-; have the potential for detect- ireds of workers are *.dying! ing work-related health threats, P.Wauomr.tks..t,IasteDnianngtheeroirusne,two bYoo0ouKkr,'I, ,Insti.tute for Occupational1 Health." Safety and Health (N.I.O.S.H) But Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, di was set up to survey indus rector of environmental sci- trial health problems, conduct rach day from occupational btadequate StMdards ences at Mount Sinai School needed research and develop; iiseases The Government Accounting Enforceable Federal stand ards to protect worker health currently exist for only 450 of Medicine, said, "For scien-f new standards for known and; tists to worn,- about what we potential occupational hazards, dont yet know when nothing! But in the wide bureaucracy Office acknowledges that there of the estimated 15,000 chemi is being done about what wei 0f the Department of Health,, las not been nearly enough cal and physical agents to already know is a cop-out." He| Education and Welfare, the in- noney and staff allocated to which workers are exposed, noted that even if there wereii stitute has thus far been nake a dent in the vast prob- and experts in occupational enough data to develop pro-! treated like an unwanted step- ?m of occupational .h.ealth.. In"i health say that most of these standards are inadequate and tective standards for all known and potential dangers, the La-j child. According to a recent anal- edition, fundamental scien- unenforced. bor Department would be hard; ysis by the Government Ac-, uic knowledge is lacking uponu For vinyl chloride, for ex- put to enforce them with only! icounting Office, a meager 'hich to base remedial actions, p ample, the existing Federal 600 Federal inspectors and hy-i ibudget of about $24-million nd without more funds the|standard is 1. times higher gienists to canvass nearly five ;and a staff limited in size (600) ecessary research is not forth-iitdlan wkat most 'ndustria! users oming. Historically, themselves adopted years ago, gnd is infinitely higher than the occupational, zero exposure level that labor ca'th has been a low-priority) and university scientists rec em far both government and ommend. million workplaces. [and professional level have1 During its first eight months, I severely hampered the insti-. O.S.H.A. inspectors visited 17,- Itute's potential accomplish-; 743 workplaces. At this rate, intents. it would take them more than As a result. In its first two 200 years to visit each one' and a half years, the institute edicine. once. If the staff were ex- !has been able to develop the Yet, each year one of every THE NEW YCRK ontlnued on Page 28, Column 1 TIMES panded_ to the original projec-. 'criteria for only 16 new standtion of 2,000, it would still! :ards for hazardous materials, take about 50 years to com although the institute's list of plete the rounds of workplaces. high priority agents exceeds In thousands of plants 400. March 4, 1974 throughout the country, work ers do not even know what .time." i In an interview last week. Dr. Key said the situation had| not yet improved. "If any-! thing, it's worse,'' he remarked. The institute's efforts are not aided by the fact that oc cupational health has been virtually ignored by the medical profession, which regards it as a less-than-glamorous special ty. Only a handful of univer sities have departments of occupational health and fewer than a dozen physicians enter! the field each year, the ma jority becoming company doc tors. The institute also faces the scientific problem of how to determine when a substance is safe. As Dr. E. Cuyier Ham mond of the American Cancer Society said: "Negative results in testing a substance for cancer-produc ing properties are meaningless, j and a clever-enough researcher lean make almost anything in! duce cancer in animals, but : his findings may have no and its reluctance to assurm full enforcement responsibili ries. Thus far, the institute has acted on only two of the in stitute's 16 proposed standards -- asbestos and carcinogens-- and in both cases the action resulted in a weaker standard than the institute had rec ommended. Under Administration pres sure -- and to the distress of occupational health actrvitists -- the Labor Department has been seeking to turn enforce ment of the Federal regulations back to state occupational safety and health divisions. Robert E. Nagle, general counsel for trie Senate Labor and Public Welfare Commit tee who is the main author of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. said that the states traditionally have had little in terest or expertise.in occupa tional health (as opposed to safety), and that state officials are likely to be more suscep tible to pressure from local in dustry than Federal enforce ment' agents would. ASI 000017009 chemicals they work with since, to protect trade secrets, the substances are given only code numbers. And unless a rederai standard exists, the company is not required to monitor worker rmnotTM *-i