Word: dust
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...visible reminders of the facto ry's 17 years in Tyler. But the scars from the plant's presence will not soon dis appear. While producing insulation for the boilers and pipes of naval ships, workers in the plant were exposed to enormous quantities of asbestos dust, which, once inhaled, never leaves the lungs. Now, based on previous experience with asbestos-caused diseases, medical experts estimate that as many as 300 of the 869 employed at the plant since 1954 will die of asbestosis (a permanent and often progressive scarring of lung tissue from inhaled asbestos fibers), lung...
Their deaths should come as no sur prise to either company or Government officials. Doctors have long suspected that asbestos dust is hazardous; there has been ample documentation of increased incidence of lung disease and cancers among people exposed to the mineral. As early as 1961, Dr. Irving Selikoff, 59, of New York's Mount Sinai Hospital, and Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond, 61, of the American Cancer Society, confirmed the deadly relationship in studies of workers at a Paterson, N.J., asbestos plant. They documented their work in scientific papers and meetings. They also showed that even small quantities...
After the work by Selikoff and others, P.C.C. officials ordered a study of the asbestos-dust hazard at Tyler in 1963. The report seriously underestimated the hazard. A 1966 dust survey found asbestos levels above recommended thresholds in many areas of the plant, and a 1967 survey by the U.S. Public Health Service's Division of Occupational Health confirmed that the levels were high, but did not warn of the health hazard. After a Labor Department study two years later reported the same conditions, respirators were issued to workers in the plant's dustiest areas. But, according...
...created the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)-and gave the Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the authority to enforce compliance with asbestos standards-that things began to happen. In 1971 a NIOSH team visited Tyler, confirmed the danger of the dust levels, and emphasized the extraordinary haz ard. The team pointed out many examples of poor hygiene practices: the company lunchroom was close to the production area and workers were using compressed-air hoses to blow dust off each other (and thus spreading it about), and the company was selling burlap bags...
...closing should help protect citizens of Tyler from any further risk of contracting asbestosis. But it will do little to help those already exposed to the asbestos dust. Asbestosis and related cancers may not develop until 30 years after exposure to the particles, but once they do, they are painful and often fatal. "He hurt with every breath he took, because his lungs were torn and scarred on the inside from breathing asbestos fibers," said Mrs. Robert Thomas of her husband, who died five months...