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CORPORATE HALL OF SHAME

TOXIC SECRECY

From 1959 through 1973 Dow, BF Goodrich, Union Carbide, and the rest of the vinyl chloride industry disseminated lies and suppressed the truth about vinyl chloride's health effects.
 

For years, makers and users of vinyl chloride concealed the terrible truth: The chemical can cause cancer. 

ERROR MSGDocuments obtained by the Houston Chronicle suggest that major chemical manufacturers closed ranks in the late 1950s to contain and counteract evidence of vinyl chloride's toxic effects. 

There are two dominant themes: ERROR MSG avoid disclosure and deny liability. 

There was a concerted effort to hide this material," said Dr. David Rosner, a professor of public health and history at Columbia University who has reviewed many of the documents as part of a research project. "It's clear there was chicanery." 

The documents present a scenario: That the chemical companies, through their silence and inertia, subjected at least two generations of workers to excessive levels of a potent carcinogen that targets the liver, brain, lungs and blood-forming organs. 

Although they freely shared health information among themselves, the companies were evasive with their own employees and the government.  They were unwilling to disrupt the growing market for polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.

The wall of secrecy surrounding vinyl chloride was not breached until Jan. 23, 1974, when B.F. Goodrich announced that it had found three fatal cases of angiosarcoma among workers at its PVC plant in Louisville.

juego keno en lineaThe Louisville cancer revelation in 1974 set in motion months of frenetic activity in Washington, highlighted by contentious OSHA and congressional hearings. Labor leaders and public-health advocates spoke of a cover-up by the vinyl industry.

 
The industry position was "Aside from the risk of fire and explosion, vinyl chloride presents no other very serious problem in general handling. The presently accepted upper limit of safety as a health hazard is 500 ppm  (parts per million)."

b&b Sandnes alberghiHowever, OSHA adopted an emergency temporary standard of 50 ppm (and later proposed a permanent standard of 1 ppm). A federal ban was imposed on the use of vinyl chloride as a propellant in hair sprays, pesticides and other aerosol products. (Mindful of "essentially unlimited liability to the entire U.S. population," as Union Carbide put it in 1973, some manufacturers already had begun to pull out of the aerosol market). Tests had shown that it was not unusual for hair spray users of that era to be exposed to hundreds or even thousands of ppm.

Bath luxury hotelsRetired Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark wrote that "the record shows what can only be described as a course of continued
procrastination on the part of the industry to protect the lives of its
employees." 

In the summer of 1975, a group of workers approached the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Industries with the death certificates of 56 former colleagues and a list of others who had died 

In a study published in 1982, federal investigators gave details of 25 brain
cancer deaths among former employees of Dow's Texas Division in Freeport. The deaths occurred between 1951 and 1977, and most the cancers were of two strains: astrocytoma and glioblastoma.

ERROR MSGVINYL CHLORIDE CAUSES CANCER.

The corporations choose to AVOID DISCLOSURE AND DENY LIABILITY.

Protect your rights.

People or family members who worked in the cosmetology industry between 1958 and 1974 and have suffered with or died from brain cancer, liver cancer, leukemia, or lymphoma have the right to sue the chemical companies. Financial recoveries are substantial. If you or your loved ones have endured these diseases  contact us immediately.