BAD CHEMISTRY
Barnett, Tracy L.
BAD CHEMISTRY When stillbirths and sterility come with the job BY TRACY L. BARNETT Kevin Higgins is a fighter. Trained to take the worst of everything, he rushes into burning buildings, battles...
...And they tend to discriminate against women by denying them jobs that require their presence in the prohibited areas...
...And the warning label on the paint can says nothing about its potential dangers to the reproductive system or to the unborn child...
...At first," he says, "we thought it was just chance...
...He pored over toxicology books and manuals...
...Whether or not 2EE caused the death of the firefighters' babies in Baltimore, one thing is certain: Current attempts to regulate chemicals in the workplace are inadequate...
...Regulators can align the data to fit whichever side of the equation they're coming down on," says Legator...
...There is every indication that most of the women employees at the Olin plant appreciate and support the policy...
...It's sad," says Mary Anne Higgins, "but sometimes people just have to learn the hard way...
...It's no substitute for a clean workplace...
...And just as the need for more stringent controls becomes evident, those controls are being loosened...
...Facing criticism from labor groups that believed the guidelines were inadequate and from industry groups that felt threatened by them, EEOC withdrew the guidelines in 1981...
...There's just no other common denominator...
...A 1977 report from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) showed male anesthesiologists to be at risk, and the unexposed wives of these men experienced a higher than normal rate of spontaneous abortion...
...Increased numbers of birth defects, retarded fetal growth, embryo deaths, and spontaneous abortions showed up time after time in animals exposed to amounts comparable to the OSHA standards...
...Young Kevin was the only healthy child born to the Baltimore firefighter group in an entire two-year period...
...And in 1984, an Olin Corporation policy of "excluding or restricting women access to certain jobs which involved exposure to chemicals which could be harmful to fetuses" was upheld by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in North Carolina...
...But if you take it from a consumer-protection standpoint, you'd be more likely to say there are no data that prove this substance is safe...
...health-care workers use ethylene oxide and office workers spend long hours at video display terminals, both of which have been linked to reproductive damage...
...The Dow Chemical Company voluntarily discontinued production and distribution of the glycol ethers after being persuaded that they might indeed pose a reproductive risk...
...We've always assumed a chemical is guilty until proven innocent," says Marvin Legator, a geneticist at the University of Texas at Galveston...
...They arrived three months early, and they did not survive...
...We brushed it on...
...It's going to take a lot of work to stop these things that are hurting our children...
...Widely used organic solvents such as carbon tetrachloride, styrene, xylene, benzene, and toluene are used in the cleaning and assembly of electronic components...
...He always knew it was a risky job: His chances of contracting cancer are almost twice those of the average person...
...The last label I saw was in January or February of 1984...
...Relaxed reporting requirements and fewer actions by OSHA have discouraged worker participation in regulation...
...When DuPont learned of the situation in Baltimore," states DuPont spokesman Richard B. Hamilton, "we reviewed all available data regarding the toxicity of IMRON and concluded that there is no scientific association between our product and the outcomes of the pregnancies of the firefighters' wives and girlfriends...
...From the industrial standpoint, you might say there are no data that conclusively prove this substance is harmful...
...ethylene oxide, used for sterilization in hospitals...
...Then we scraped it off and did it again...
...Kevin and Mary Anne Higgins are Tracy L. Barnett is a reporter for the Columbia Daily Tribune and a science journalism student at the University of Missouri...
...We brushed it on...
...If you start to exclude women, what do you do about the men...
...Regulators under the Carter Administration were encouraged to "err on the side of caution" in interpreting available scientific data, so as to avoid letting serious health hazards slip through the regulatory safety net...
...Geneticist Legator disagrees...
...At least three different labels, all of which were paper and easily removed, appeared on the various paint cans...
...The "due-process" system of chemical evaluation to which Legator refers is at the heart of OSHA's inaction on the glycol-ethers case...
...textile workers are exposed to carbon disulfide, a suspected cause of infertility and birth defects...
...fire-fighting is a labor of love...
...DuPont denies the paint was the culprit and has sponsored a $150,000 study to prove it...
...At Under the Carter Administration, f\'\*/ regulators were encouraged to err on \ ^ the side of caution...
...We had to do something, so we did...
...A wide variety of cancers and lung diseases are attributed to occupational exposure to toxic chemicals, and now it appears—in the words of former EPA official Vilma Hunt-that "the procreative integrity of the nation" may be at risk as well...
...NIOSH recommended that companies producing, distributing, or using the ethers should "give this information to their workers and customers, and that professional and trade associations and unions inform their members...
...Most women faced with such situations do not choose sterilization...
...Glycol ethers are among almost 60,000 types of chemicals in commercial use...
...cadmium, a heavy metal used in the manufacture of batteries...
...Reagan appointees #^Tl™ have inverted the priorities Wfj present, the typical manufacturer can expect an inspection about once in six years...
...Exclusionary policies are a cop-out," he says...
...Christman and four other women who were demoted to janitorial positions chose sterilization in order to keep their old jobs...
...So companies were left free to exclude women from some jobs...
...In 1981, an estimated 400 million pounds of the two chemicals and their acetates (which are thought to have the same effects) were produced in the United States...
...we rolled it on...
...Other traditionally female occupations involve exposure to reproductive hazards: Dry-cleaning workers use trichloroethy-lene and tetrachloroethylene, solvents that are suspected mutagens and teratogens...
...carbon disulfide, used in the production of rayon...
...I'm not a body and fender man, but the stuff was literally falling apart," says Higgins...
...we sprayed it on' Kevin Higgins's case is ironic: Trained to handle hazardous materials, he has written articles for national magazines and taught a course in fire-science technology at the University of Maryland...
...The Higgins babies were only the beginning...
...The male worker is grossly underrepresented in terms of reproductive protection," he says...
...But the EEOC guidelines were never carried out...
...As they go about their work each day, men and women unknowingly risk not only their own health but also that of their unborn children...
...DuPont is not aware of any adverse reproductive effects in humans, he maintains...
...But after his fellow workers experienced eight more miscarriages, they began to doubt that it was coincidence...
...The bulletin said the ethers should be "regarded in the workplace as having the potential to cause adverse reproductive effects in male and female workers...
...with current resources OSHA can check fewer than 4 per cent of the nation's workplaces each year...
...Since then, dozens of other substances have come under suspicion as hazards to the male reproductive'system: vinyl chloride, widely used in plastic pipes, kitch-enware, and children's toys...
...For example, female operating-room nurses are not excluded from their jobs, even though a 1977 NIOSH study showed that women employed in operating rooms during the year preceding conception or the first three months of pregnancy experienced a risk of spontaneous abortion 1.3 to 2.0 times higher than normal and had a 60 per cent to 200 per cent increase in birth defects...
...But he freely took the risks...
...holds his son just a little tighter than he might have if life had been a bit different...
...we sprayed it on...
...Exposed male animals became sterile, their testicles deteriorated, and their sperm cells were abnormally developed...
...But the current Administration has taken the exact opposite approach...
...Women in general should applaud the effort," said Jones...
...We have to deal with yesterday's mistakes today," he says...
...we rolled it on...
...district court in Baltimore will have to rule on the Higginses' claim that his exposure to glycol ethers in IMRON, a heat-resistant enamel, caused their daughters' deaths...
...DuPont, however, continues to lobby against regulation of the substances...
...The thing to do is to make the workplace safe for everybody...
...We asked about the safety of the paint and were told there was no problem...
...And work he does...
...The years of digging and questioning that led him to the glycol-ether problem are going into a book he hopes to finish soon...
...Kevin Higgins Sr...
...Two other infants survived but have malformed feet...
...Now a chemical is innocent until proven guilty...
...some, like benzene, are linked to cancer in humans...
...Four years ago, though, something happened that Kevin Higgins wasn't ready for, and now he is fighting a different kind of battle...
...Between 1974 and 1977, as many as 400,000 workers were exposed to 2EE, NIOSH estimates...
...In general, if you want to control a hazard, personnel policies are just an inadequate way to address the problem...
...It was silk-screened onto the can to prevent removal, but it still didn't mention the reproductive hazards of the paint...
...Some paint had been transferred into containers without labels...
...We asked about the safety of the paint and were told there was no problem," says Higgins...
...Dow has since discontinued production of these substances...
...DuPont spokesman Hamilton points out that the glycol ether solvents in IMRON have been in widespread use for more than forty years and that IMRON itself is fifteen years old...
...NIOSH had done an extensive review of the literature on the ethers and found that OSHA's standards for a "permissible exposure level" were, in all probability, not adequately protecting workers...
...His training and knowledge of toxicology led him to wonder whether the problem was chemical-related, and he began a lengthy search through Material Safety Data Sheets, the forms required by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for hazardous substances in the workplace...
...She got to keep her job, but she can no longer bear a child...
...The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted no regulations restricting their use...
...ruled that it "did not violate rights of female employees...
...In January 1982, Mary Anne Higgins, Kevin's wife, gave birth to twin girls...
...It was a happy one...
...He cites as further evidence the fact that all but one of the parents who gave birth to defective children worked on the same shift...
...Yet, in 1986, OSHA's standards for the ethers—2-methoxyethanol and 2-ethoxy-ethanol—remain the same, even though no studies of reproductive effects were taken into consideration when the standards were adopted...
...After that, the vulnerability of the male reproductive system was impossible to ignore...
...We have no concrete proof at this time," says Jeff DeLisle of the local firefighters' union, "but we're convinced it was the paint...
...The specter of fetal-damage liability suits has prompted some companies to adopt policies that keep fertile women out of potentially dangerous areas...
...An estimated ten million workers are exposed to these solvents each day, yet little is known of their effects on the reproductive system...
...This year, the U.S...
...That is, a chemical must be proven safe before it is allowed on the marketplace...
...Several have brought suit, however, and their cases resulted, in 1980, in the issuance by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) of a set of "interpretive guidelines" on reproductive-health-related discrimination: Workers may not be excluded from the workplace on the basis of sex unless the scientific evidence demonstrates a health effect on one sex only...
...Fetal-protection policies have not been initiated for most traditionally female occupations...
...Kevin Higgins Jr...
...In the two years that followed at Baltimore's Engine Company Number One, firefighters and paramedics who had been exposed to ethoxyethanol, a chemical that has been shown to cause reproductive problems in laboratory animals, experienced twelve stillbirths or early-infancy deaths...
...OSHA has taken no regulatory action regarding glycol ethers, and products containing them remain unmarked...
...We've known for years that lead causes reproductive problems in males as well as females, but it's difficult for people to understand that men are vulnerable as well...
...Glycol ethers are currently used in about 250,000 products...
...When his wife lost the twins, the Hig-ginses knew that stillbirths are common...
...celebrated his second birthday last November...
...The electronics industry threatens to provide major new causes of reproductive damage...
...The Commission said alleged violations of workers' civil rights could be better handled case by case...
...However, other analysts point out that employment in affected areas of industry has fallen: "The slowdown in business activity between 1980 and 1983 was the most important factor in the decrease in injury rates," according to a 1985 study by the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA...
...Their case is extreme, of course...
...The label warned of respiratory distress and instructed the reader to use according to NIOSH standards—which were not available at Baltimore's Engine Company Number One, as they are not in most workplaces...
...Many organic solvents have been linked with birth defects, mutations, or cancer in animals...
...Education and the raising of public awareness are his new goals...
...While regulators and researchers haggle over safety levels and substantive effects, industry has found its own way of dealing with the reproductive-health issue...
...Until fairly recently, most of the attention paid to reproductive health problems focused on women workers...
...The number of inspections has dropped, further weakening what the OTA study called "an already weak regulatory effort...
...among the thousands of confused and anguished parents who have suffered from reproductive health problems they believe to be work-related...
...The Baltimore fire engines were particularly prone to rust, and the firefighters often did their own maintenance work while waiting for calls...
...Olin should not be required to allow women employees at a known risk to stay on the restricted jobs until there is scientific evidence compiled with respect to men...
...And two, a pair of twins, were born nearly three months prematurely...
...But such policies do not, obviously, solve the critical problem of male vulnerability...
...Jones noted a "negligible or theoretical risk" to men but decreed that Olin had shown there were no feasible alternative nondiscriminatory policies or practices...
...and chloro-prene, a pesticide...
...About a thousand new chemicals enter the market each year and, according to a 1985 study by the National Academy of Sciences, the vast majority are either inadequately tested or not tested at all...
...Management at American Cyanamid's plant in Willow Island, West Virginia, where lead pigments are manufactured, adopted a fetal-protection policy in 1978 to prevent the exposure of fertile women to lead...
...And in 1983 an EEOC attorney affirmed the Commission's noninterventionist intentions by announcing it was "no longer involved in the litigation of the fetal-vulnerability issue...
...Trained to take the worst of everything, he rushes into burning buildings, battles twenty-story fires, cleans up toxic-waste spills—all in a day's work...
...Matt Gillen, an industrial hygienist with the Worker's Institute for Safety and Health in Washington, agrees...
...Judge Woodrow Wilson Jones Jr...
...His case against the two chemical companies will keep him busy for a long time...
...In 1977, however, exposure of men in California to the pesticide dibromochloropropane (DBCP) resulted in mass sterility...
...He doesn't miss the two four-year-old sisters he might have had...
...And again, and again...
...OSHA officials say a new low-incidence rate of occupational injury reflects the success of President Reagan's emphasis on a nonadversarial relationship with industry...
...The ethers are used in printing inks and dyes, anti-icing agents in brake fluids, anti-stall agents in gasoline, cosmetics, pesticides, cleaning products, drugs, lacquers, epoxy resin coatings—and heat-resistant paints like IMRON...
...Finally his search led him to the 1983 NIOSH Current Intelligence Bulletin on two glycol ethers, one of which was used in the IMRON paint...
...he is 55 per cent more likely than average to develop heart disease...
...Reagan appointees, however, have taken a "show-me" stance on the issue...
...Together with two other couples, they filed suit last December on behalf of four deceased children, seeking $630 million from DuPont, manufacturer of IMRON, and Dow Chemical, which produced the glycol ethers...
...He studied all the substances to which he and Mary Anne, who works as a paramedic in a different fire station, might have been exposed...
...Nobody told Higgins that the new coat of IMRON paint on the old fire truck was a reproductive health hazard, and it's not because nobody knew...
...They are reluctant to set strict standards on a substance unless significant risks are actually proven beyond a reasonable doubt...
...Barbara Cantwell Christman is one woman who learned about fetal-protection policies the hard way...
...A classic example is the American Cyanamid case...
Vol. 50 • July 1986 • No. 7
