Document ygZ9dRazjZ1YY9ONXOdqbbx3

juiy iJ-, is/1* iiju min' uAii i moL, Mes:SsC^iS lISTSkwo Edupation, Religion, Mental Health /What Is Being Done About Jobs That Can Kill By JANE E. BRODY The recent disclosure that four : workers in a vinyl chloride plant had developed a rare and fatal liver cancer led 10 an industrywide search and the discovery, so far* of 21 such cases. The Department of Labor has con cluded heart: ~s on new limits to wor,.er exposure to vinyl chloride, which is a chemical that, forms the basis for thousands of plastic products, ranging from tablecloths- and phono graph records to water pipes and in sulation. The vinyl cloride findings are only the latest of many instances of oc cupationally caused canc s. The first was in 1775. when Percivall Pott, an English surgeon, published a medical report describing a high incidence of cancer of tire scrotum atnong the chimney sweeps of London. Dr. Pott's report inspired a ruling three years V. later bv the Danish Chimney Sweep ers Gid'i that its members should have daily baths to prevent accumula tion of cancer-causing soot. Relatively few subsequent discoveries of jobrelated cancers or other occupational diseases have resulted in prompt pro tective sc: n. a Danger and Delay Benzidine, a chemical used in the dye industry, was first described in 1929 by. a British factory doctor as suspected of causing cancer of the bladder. In 195S, an American doctor. .. Mitchell R. Zavon, began compiling bladder cancer cases among workers .in a Cincinnati plant. But it was not until 1972 that Dr. Zavon disclosed his findings to Federal authorities responsible for protecting the health of American workers. And it was not until a year ago that Federal rules took effect to prevent worker ex posure to benzidine and 13 other known and suspected occupational carcinogens. Asbestos is a ubiquitous fibrous mineral used for everything from food processing filters to construction ma terials to brake linings. It has been known for two decades to cause in variably fatal cancers and disabling lung disease. Workers are still not protected, despite a Government ruling. Two years ago, the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration decided to lower the worker exposure standard from, five to two fibers per cubic centimeter of air. But at the industry's urging, the agency delayed the effective date of the ruling until 197C. As a result workers may be inhaling ns many as 12.5-billion potentially lethal fibers each year when a level one-fifth that has already been shown to produce cancer in man. This week a Senate subcommittee is holding hearings on alleged Labor Department foot-dragging on asbestos standards. The charges are that the Nixon Administration deliberately went easy on industry in return for campaign pledges. The Government is now proposing that the exposure limit of 500 parts of vinyl chloride per million parts of air be lowered to "no detectable level," or one part per million parts of air. The proposal is based on the scientific tenet that there is no "safe" level of a canccr-causing agent At the hearings, company represen tatives asserted the ruling would be "economically not feasible." It would, they said, shut down the entire in dustry and result in the loss of per haps 700,000 jobs. Labor sources condemned the conclusion as "hyster ical," and Dr. Irving J. Selilmff of Mount Sinai Hospital, on authority on beeupational diseases, pointed out that the Dow Chemical Company had al ready brqpght its levels down to below 10 parts per million, with every indica tion that they can be readily reduced still further. - A Classic Battle , Until the hearings, industry had been extremely cooperative in helping researchers define and control the vinyl chloride hazard. But now the fight is shaping up along classic lines: labor vs. industry and industry vs. `Government regulation. And there is every indication that similar battles will be waged in the years to come. Some 15,000 chemical and physical agents are in industrial use now; hundreds are introduced each year, most of which are untested for disease-causing potential. Assistant Secretary of Labor John H. Slender, head of the three-year-old Occupa tional Safety and Health Administra tion, has warned that Government action to protect worker health has only just begun. As he put it recently: "Research so enthusiastically poured Into finding profitable uses for new substances must be expanded to include determin-ing how safe these substances are. 'Any doubt must be resolved on the side of the employee." (More Ideas & Trends, Page 16.) _ . v " ,.v ..W**#, *!**'* 1OO290