Word: pvc
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Evidence of vinyl chloride's toxicity has been around for years. Production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) was begun in 1938 by B.F. Goodrich Co. That year experiments showed that the vinyl chloride gas used at the plant was dangerous to animals. A 1949 Russian study showed that vinyl chloride (VC) caused nonmalignant liver damage in 15 of 48 workers exposed to the chemical; surveys in other European countries over the next decade and a half confirmed the connection. In 1966 and 1967 British scientists examining PVC workers reported a high incidence of acro-osteolysis, a condition partially characterized...
...Publio L. Viola of the University of Rome, who found tumors in the lungs, skin and bones of rats exposed to high concentrations of the gas. The link was strengthened in 1973 when researchers from Bonn University found evidence of liver damage in 19 out of 20 PVC workers at a single plant. The bombshell really burst early this year when B.F. Goodrich Co. reported that three men who worked with VC in its Louisville, Ky., plastics plant had died of angiosarcoma of the liver since 1971. Since then doctors have identified nine more cases of the cancer...
...prediction could prove correct, for in the U.S. alone some 6,500 workers are involved in making VC gas or converting the gas into PVC; thousands more are engaged in converting the plastic into finished products. European and Japanese firms are also heavily involved in VC production...
What did worry Lieberson right at the start was the shortage of vinyl now beginning to hit the industry hard. Vinyl, known in the trade as PVC (polyvinyl chloride), is the chemical byproduct of crude oil from which records are made. As a result of oil shortages, Columbia has been forced to suspend its $1.98 Harmony pop label; it also trimmed its November output by postponing several releases until 1974. In general, the industry will probably have to opt for greater selectivity in its releases-or, as Lieberson puts it, "an end to buckshotting-throwing everything against the wall...
...that makes full use of disposables is now responsible for 15 to 18 pounds of garbage a day. Much of it consists of a dozen or more varieties of plastics that can be burned, provided the local air-pollution code allows the hospital to use an incinerator. But the PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastics may generate lethal fumes containing hydrochloric acid and phosgene, a poisonous gas once used in chemical warfare. Other plastics melt and clog the incinerators...