Vinyl Chloride and Occupational Cancer

After WWII, vinyl chloride (VC) became a key chemical used to make plastic products. It was manufactured exclusively for polymeri After WWII, vinyl chloride (VC) became a key chemical used to make plastic products. It was manufactured exclusively for polymerization into polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a plastic used in construction, packaging, electrical, and transportation industries; in household products such as flooring, water piping, videodiscs, and credit cards; and in medical products such as disposable intravenous bags, tubing, and bedpans. In 1974-1975, the disclosure that vinyl chloride exposure had caused rare liver cancers in worker led the recently created U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an emergency standard to ptotect workers. VC and PVC production plants had to reduce workplace exposure levels from 500 ppm to 1 ppm, to provide protect workers' health. When OSHA issued the new exposure limit of 1 ppm, industry spokespeople issued dire predictions of job loss and plant closures. However, in less than two years virtually all U.S. manufacturing plants were able to meet the new standard while still maintaining rapid growth of sales volume. This was accomplished largely through better containment of unpolymerized VC monomer and improved exposure monitoring. For more information, go to the 2005 article in the Journal Environmental Health Perspectives at http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/7716/7716.html and read the book, Deceit and Denial: the deadly politics of industrial pollution by Markowitz and Rosner, from the University of California Press, http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9844/9844.intro.html . This clip is from the 1978 movie, More Than a Paycheck, and the voice is the late Dr. Irving Selikoff.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Selikoff
• cancer
• OSHA
• Hazwoper
• hazcom
• hazmat
• labor
• hygiene
• earth
• day
• worker
• memorial

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