Document yke8RJLj46qKp5g6oJbjyEg72

(Mannyy%W<orkers Still Face devel * under the Federal law are promulgated by the of Labor's Occupational Safetyi Indie To handle "emergencies" like releva unaa exposure^ those exposed. Ivinyl chloride, the Institute S RaiheMm.aa recommend The set has dona a great 'has been forced to divert funds "safe" exposure levels. Dr. and Health Administration deal to improve the worker's and personnel from other es Hammond and Dr. Key believe Health Peril Despite Law (O.S.H.A.) at a rate of only one perceptions about the situa sential but less immediate that industry should adopt a year. At the same time, in tion, but it hasn't yet done tasks, such as developing! protective work practices that dustry is introducing some 400 much to improve the situa- i standards that might head off eliminate worker exposure to new chemicals each year, itkm," said Anthony Mazzocchi, other vinyl chlorides before all agents--whether or not they ByMNEE.HBODY The recent discovery of fetal nearly all of which are untested 'legislative director of the Oil, workers succumb to their ef have been proved harmful. ^ for possible long-term effects `Chemical and Atomic Workers fects. Such work practices wery on tha workers who handle International Union, Last year,- the ordinarily recommended by the institute liver cancer among vinyl chloride workers has . focused 10 workers suffers a job-related illness or injury. The Public, them. l Franklin Wailick There is virtually no testing United Automobile of tha Workers, sedate and sober director of lor 14 cancer-causing Industrial the institute. Dr. Marcus Key,! chemicals covered by an emer attention of govern Health Service estimates that ment, labor. Industry and prolonged on-the-job exposure on the thousands of to toxic chemicals, dusts, noise, suspected and as yet unsuspected health hazards heat, cold, radiation and other industrial conditions each year results in the death of at least 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 tost part workers am still leading occupational hazard-- the human guinea pigs for In asbestos--it known to greatly) dustrial processes." 'exploded with exasperation: I gency standard issued last `N.l.O.S.H. Is not expanding,! spring The institute advocates It to shrinking It is getting |a similar-approach to vinyl the proverbial meat sx. . . . !chloride, a gaseous chemical Our present laboratory space in the plastics industry that ir isn't even adequate for any the last month has been linked face 60 millfon working 100,000 workers and the ... valopment of disabling occupa Detroit* tha passagn three tional diseases in 390,000 more. year. _. o of tha Occupational Researchers in occupational hIicenaultuh bIfCeHliCevTYe UthHatl (cUouUnIItIleICasfi increase the risk of lung can In interviews last week, ta cer only in workers who smoke bor, industry, government and cigarettes. university sources agreed that `The long-term effects of the although the occupational vast majority of chemical and health law was a giant and kind of research. It is sub standard. . . . We have been frozen on hirings for most of: our existence, and we ami losing key staff right and left' to angiosarcoma of the liver, an extremely rare cancer, in nine workers at four different plants. A further problem In gain Safely and Health Act. granting tholtMIKit of others succumb to| physical agents used In indus essential step in the right di because we don't have the ing worker protection under every American tbe right to insidious job-related diseases1 try have not been proved, and rection, the realities of current grade points to promote them. the act has been the slowness work without job-induced not yet discovered by science practically no research Is be Administration funding have ... I don't think N.l.O.S.H. of the Labor Department in threats to life and health, the Industry sources estimate ' majority of thjt >y between 5 and 13 ot yet protectedi P ntof workers are< covered ing conducted to find out what deprived it of much-needed these effects are," Dr. Jeanne muscle. | M. Stillman and Dr. Susan M. Under the act, the National: Daum state in their new book, to a viable organization at this time." In an Interview last week, issuing new exposure standards and its reluctance to assume full enforcement respnosibili- provisions. For medical departments, which lack of this protection, hun-j have the potential for detectdreds of workers am>dyingl tag work-related health threats. "Work to Dangerous to Your Institute for Occupational1 Health." Safety and Health (N.l.O.S.H) But Dr. Irving J. Selikoff, di was set up to survey indus rector of environmental sci trial health problems, conduct] Dr. Key said the situation had not yet improved. "If any thing, it's worse," he remarked. teach day from occupational diseases. ,, Enforceable Federal ____ The Government Accounting aids to protect currently exist worker health for wily 450| Office acknowledges that there of the estimated 13,000 cheat! has not been nearly enough) cal and physical agents to| money and staff allocated to which worirera are exposed, make a dent in tha vast prob and experts in occupational lem of occupational health. In addition, fundamental sden health say that most of these us_nt_ae_n_nd_foa_rr_cd_es_d_.are inadequate and tifle ' 'ledge Is lacking uponk For vinyl chloride, for ex I which cu bIiamn.e rMemmewdtiiaiil actions,faammnplle*, sthhe .exi<st*i!ng Fve--d*--eral and without more funds the standard is 10 times higher necessary research is not forth than what most industrial users coming. themselves adopted yean ago, (and is infinitely higher than the Historically, occupational zero exposure level that labor health has been a low-priorityjand university scientists rec- item far both government end1 ommend. medicine. Yet, each year one f every THE NEW YORK TIMES March 4, 1974 ences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said, "For scien tists to worry about what wo don't yet know when nothing is being done about what we already know is a cop-out" He. footed that even If there enough data to develop pro tective standards for all known) and potential dangers, the La bor Department would be hard put to enforce them with only) 600 Federal inspectors and hy gienists to canvass nearly five million workplaces. i During its first eight months, O.S.HA. inspectors visited 17.743 workplaces. At this rate, k would take them more than 200 yean to visit each one once. If tbe staff were ex panded to the original projec tion of 2.000. it would stilt take about SO years to com-, plete the rounds of workplaces.1 In thousands of plants throughout the country, work needed research and develop! The Institute's efforts are new standards for known and! not aided by the fact that oc potential occupational hazards. cupational health has been But in the wide bureaucracy: of the Department of Health,: Education and Welfare, tbe in-1 stitute has thus far been treated like an unwanted step child. According to a recent anal ysis by the Government Ac-j counting Office, a meager' budget of about 324-million and a staff limited in size (600) and professtonal level have severely hampered the insti tute's potential accomptish- jvirtually ignored by the medicalj profession, which regards it asi a Jeaa-than-gJamoroua special-' ty. Only a handful of univer- [ sides have departments of Ioccupational health and fewer jthan a dozen physicians enter jibe field each year, the ma jority becoming company doc tors. The institute also facet the scientific problem of how to determine when a subslance to safe. As Dr. E. Cuyler Ham As a result. In its first two id a half years, the Institute has been able to develop the criteria for only 16 new stand ards for hazardous materials, although the institute's list of high priority agents exceeds 400. mond of the American Cancer Society said: / "Negative results in testing a substance for cancer-produc ing properties are meaningless, and a clever-enough researcher can make almost anything in duce cancer In animals, but his findings may have po *ies. Thus far, the Institute has acted on only two of the in stitute's 16 propoecd standards -- asbestos and carcinogens-- and in both cases the action resulted in a weaker standard than the institute had rec ommended. Under Administration preo> sure -- and to the distress of occupational' health activitistg -- the Labor Department has been seeking to turn enforce^ ment of the Federal regulations back to mate occupational safety and health divisions. Robert E. Nagle, general counsel for the 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 lillle In terest or expertise.in occupa tional health (is opposed to safety), aod that itate officials are likely to bo mm suscep tible to pressure from local in dustry than Federal enforce ment agenu would. ers do not even know what chemicals they work with since, to protect trade, secrets, the substances are given only code numbers. And unless a ASI 000012053 rederal standard exists, the company is not required to