And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: <A HREF="http://www.toledoblade.com/deadlyalliance/p1.html"> http://www.toledoblade.com/deadlyalliance/p1.html</A> ======================================================= Decades of risk U.S. knowingly allowed workers to be overexposed to toxic dust BY SAM ROE BLADE SENIOR WRITER Over the last five decades, the U.S. government has risked the lives of thousands of workers by knowingly allowing them to be exposed to unsafe levels of beryllium, a material critical to the production of nuclear weapons. As a result, dozens of workers have contracted beryllium disease, an incurable, often-fatal lung illness. In the Toledo area alone, at least 39 workers have contracted the disease after being exposed to levels of beryllium over the federal safety limit. Six of these workers have died. A 22-month investigation by The Blade shows that the U.S. government clearly knew, decade after decade, that workers in the private beryllium industry were being overexposed to the hard, lightweight metal, which produces a toxic dust when manufactured or machined. But federal officials continued to subsidize and encourage the industry to produce beryllium despite numerous government, scientific, and company reports showing that the material could not be made without putting workers in extreme danger. Some workers were exposed to levels of beryllium dust 100 times above the safety limit, the government's own contemporaneous records show. When safety regulators tried to protect workers, they ran up against an overwhelming alliance: the beryllium industry and the defense establishment. Protection of the industry has reached all the way to the White House cabinet, where in the 1970s President Carter's Defense and Energy secretaries helped kill a safety plan. They feared the plan would cut off beryllium supplies for weapons, and that would "significantly and adversely affect our national defense," U.S. Energy Secretary James Schlesinger wrote to two cabinet members at the time. The Blade investigation, based on tens of thousands of court, industry, and recently declassified government documents, reveals a decades-long pattern of the government putting beryllium production and costs ahead of worker safety. "The [government] cannot stand for a cessation of production," one federal official, Martin Powers, told colleagues in 1960 in response to health concerns. Dr. Peter Infante, director of standards review for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, says the government has done a poor job protecting beryllium workers. "These are all deaths and disease that could have been prevented," Dr. Infante says. "That's the sad thing about it." Victims question why the government risked their lives for weapons. "We're killing ourselves trying to kill someone else," says Gary Renwand, a 61-year-old who contracted the disease at the country's largest beryllium plant, outside Elmore, O., 20 miles southeast of Toledo. Among the local workers who have died: Gary Anderson, a former Elmore high school football star. Marilyn Miller, the wife of a dairy farmer in Bradner. <Picture>Photos: Men at a beryllium victim's funeral; a Mercury heat shield Ethel Jones, a Fremont, O., resident whose son, Eric Johnson, also contracted the disease. Others have had their lungs so ravaged that they can no longer breathe on their own. "If they had told me I'd end up hooked up to an oxygen tank my whole life I would have run away from the damn place," says Butch Lemke, who was overexposed at the Elmore plant and has been on oxygen for 15 years. Disease by the numbers 1,200 Estimated number of documented cases of beryllium disease in America since the 1940s 1 in 11 Workers at the Elmore, O., beryllium plant who, according to a recent study, either have beryllium disease or an abnormal blood test 39 Number of local Brush workers who have contracted beryllium disease after documented overexposures No one knows how many people have ever contracted the disease. Researchers estimate 1,200 documented cases nationwide and hundreds of deaths. But they say the disease often is misdiagnosed or goes undetected. And it is difficult to determine how many victims have had exposures above the safety limit. This much is clear: Beryllium disease has emerged as the No. 1 illness directly caused by America's Cold War buildup. "I know of no other disease that we can document that is solely attributable to the work that we have conducted in the production of nuclear weapons," says Dr. Paul Seligman, director of the Energy Department's Office of Health Studies. Among The Blade's findings: � Decade after decade, the government has knowingly allowed workers at privately operated beryllium plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania to be exposed to amounts of beryllium dust far above the U.S. safety limit. The plant outside Elmore, owned by Cleveland-based Brush Wellman Inc., has never consistently complied with the safety limit in all parts of the facility. � Production and costs have been put ahead of safety even when workers were in danger. In one case, federal officials said it was policy that saving money would come before safety when choosing some beryllium suppliers. � Safety enforcement by OSHA has been virtually nonexistent. Even though dozens of workers have contracted beryllium disease at the Elmore plant, several of whom have died, OSHA has conducted only one full inspection of the facility in the past 20 years. � Even though beryllium is a highly toxic material, the government has little idea which companies are using it, how many people are exposed, and whether they are being protected. This means thousands of Americans may be exposed to dangerous amounts of beryllium and not even know it. � Despite mounting illnesses and deaths, the government has not tightened exposure limits in 50 years. It has tried only once, and the Carter administration stepped in and helped kill the plan. Long a strategic metal, beryllium is lighter than aluminum and six times stiffer than steel. It makes nuclear weapons more powerful, missiles fly farther, and jet fighters more maneuverable. And it has been critical to the space program, having been used in the early Mercury missions, the space shuttle, and the Mars Pathfinder. But when the metal is ground, sanded, or cut, and the resulting dust inhaled, workers often develop a disease that slowly eats away at their lungs. About a third with the illness eventually die of it. Scientists still consider the illness mysterious - even bizarre. Tiny, invisible amounts of beryllium dust can be deadly; the federal exposure limit - 2 micrograms per cubic meter of air - is equivalent to the amount of dust the size of a pencil tip spread throughout a 6-foot-high box the size of a football field. <Picture>Graphic: Attacking the lungs And while some people are unaffected by the dust, others get sick at seemingly insignificant exposures. So researchers think some people are genetically susceptible to the illness. Those individuals often develop the disease years after their last exposure to beryllium - up to 40 years later. Federal officials have not been oblivious to the illness. Millions of dollars have been spent to improve safeguards and identify victims. And it is unknown whether every single beryllium worker has been overexposed; the available exposure data are too sketchy. Nor is it known precisely what constitutes a safe exposure. Exposures over the federal limit do not seem to guarantee illness, and exposures under the limit may not guarantee safety. In fact, more and more scientists think that people can get sick at levels under the limit. What remains clear is that over the years, beryllium plants with close governmental ties have consistently exceeded the federally mandated safety limit with the government's full knowledge, and workers in those facilities have gone on to develop the disease. Martin Powers, a former U.S. Atomic Energy Commission official in charge of obtaining beryllium for the government in the 1950s, says federal officials knew about the high exposures and tried to control them. But he says the government did not want to shut the plants because that would mean stopping weapons production. "What is the greater risk? To possibly expose people to health injury in the plant or shut down the national defense?" Mr. Powers, who left the government to become a beryllium industry executive, says workers, at times, were put at increased risk for national security reasons. "You know you are putting them at increased risk. You hope the risk doesn't materialize, doesn't become a reality." The Energy Department, which is responsible for maintaining the nuclear weapons arsenal, says there are no substitutes for beryllium. So as long as America wants bombs, workers will face dangers. "Building weapons is an extraordinarily risky process," the Energy Department's Dr. Seligman says. Some victims say they knew there was a risk, but they didn't know they were being overexposed. Brush Wellman, America's largest beryllium producer, says it has always posted air test results on plant bulletin boards and has discussed high exposures with employees. But it acknowledges that by the time high dust counts are discovered, workers have already been overexposed. ======================================================== -------con't to part 2------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Have you visited our new web site? http://www.onelist.com Onelist: Helping to create Internet communities ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DOEWatch List --- Subscribe online: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe.cgi/doewatch"We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. It may be the fire destruction prophesized in the Euphrates Valley Era, after Noah and his fabulous Ark. Anyway we think we have found the way to cause the disintegration of the atom." -Quote from Truman's diary July 25, 45 after Pottsdam and the "baby was born"""The Doctor of the future will give No Medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."."-Attributed to Thomas Alva Edisonn"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"t"-George Orwell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
