Word: vc
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Mini-Epidemic. The connection between VC and cancer was first made in 1970 by 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...
...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...
Whopping Levels. So far, at least, there is no clear evidence that consumers are in any danger from VC. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have, as a precautionary measure, put a halt to the distribution of spray products using VC propellants.* The FDA had already ordered companies to stop bottling whisky in PVC bottles; whisky dissolves the plastic. Other PVC products offered to the consumer have yet to be proved unsafe...
...risks to plastics workers are real. A research team headed by Dr. Irving Selikoffof New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine has found that workers at one plant are exposed to VC levels of 400 to 500 parts per million of the gas, more than enough to cause liver disease in rats. Workers involved in cleaning the reactors in which VC is converted to PVC are exposed to even higher concentrations of the gas. One study showed that VC levels in these cookers range from 600 to a whopping 1,000 parts per million...
Neither Japan nor the European nations have done more than start studies on VC, but American authorities are moving to reduce the risks from the plastic peril. The Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued emergency regulations reducing allowable VC levels to 50 parts per million. Whether this is adequate to provide long-term protection for plastics workers remains to be seen. An industry-sponsored study has shown that when mice are exposed to those levels, they develop angiosarcoma...