Document 44gGVBnXVL5yx3b50jde94vda

Monsanto M onsanto Company 8 0 0 N. Lindbergh Boulevard S t. Louis, M isso u ri 83167 Phone: (314) 6 9 4 -1 0 0 0 January 5, 1983 ,DEPARTMENT OF MEOICJHE & ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH Dr. Marilyn Fingerhut NXOSH Robert A..Taft Laboratories 4676 Columbia Parkway Cincinnati, Ohio 45226 Dear Marilyn: Enclosed is a copy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article on soft tissue sarcomas that I mentioned on the phone. Although it generated the kind of nervousness that publicity tends to engender, plus phone calls from several places like Nitro, I really can't quarrel with the factual content. My name was mentioned, but not Ralph Cook's, because the story was written for local consumption. These days you can sell more newspapers here with dioxins than you- can with sex. Yours sincerely. dal William. R. Gaffey, Ph.D. Manager, Epidemiology an Enclosure % G04499 3 FROM PAGE ONE. * *!-** l*.' > 1 ` one of the stricken workers at temporarily changed the way it m ........ `.-/'`. - . y i-r-7; the plant .in Nitro was exposed to the herbicide in 1964. dioxin..* . . . Scientists a t Dow and Monsanto: S n L o u is i>sr OjsM tch The -percentage of soft-tissue i n - interviews that the soft-tu Rare, Cancers Studied cancers was discovered by scientists at cancers deserved additional atteni - : -- the-National Institute oi Occupational But they said that some of the incid Safely and Health. The scientists are reported in the letters to Lancet shi Dioxin compiling a national registry of be discounted. ' . / *, workers exposed to dioxin. William Gaffey, manager * The researchers studied deaths epidemiology at Monsanto, said it , .**.Vh 'among two groups of workers from highly unlikely that the maintens y W illiam F rsiv o g e l ' -"T! / ist-Oispatch.WashingtonBureau. *' WASHINGTON-- A rare form ' cancer has shown up in an tusually high' percentage'- of f e r s at Monsanto Co. and Dow temical Co. who were exposed to axin. Included are. two workers )m the Stl Louia area.* ** The number of workers who veloped raresoft-tissue cancers small --.two a t a Dow plant at idland. Micht; two or three at the srwanto plant -m Nitro. W'.Va.; d- two- at-Monsanto's plant in uget, IlL^in Sl.Clair County--.' Becausei the typeof tumor is so i u s u a L^tI lS cj eh t i-'sLs. - a r e investigating whether -the cases > may be among the first pieces of medical evidence-that dioxin cancause cancer in humans. - The scientists emphasize that* more study is needed to-prove o rdisprove the link. They also note ; that,- overall, no more .cancers were- found 'among w orkers' exposed to dioxin than what would 1 ' be expected from any similar-size group. industry scientists generally agree that the finding on softtissue cancers may be significant but question some details of the study. They also dispute whether ; See DlOXfN, Page 4 -Dow and two groups from Monsanto. worker at the plant in Nitro had t The Dow workers had been exposed to exposed to dioxin. The worker ha dioxin while m anufacturing the clerical job for all but a few month herbicide 2,4,5-T and those a t Monsanto ' the time that the herbicide * while making other substances.- . manufactured by Monsanto, he said The scientists reported in a letter to And Gaffey also doubted whei Lancet, a British medical journal, in '-David Cluck's cancer, could -h January.. 1981 that three of the 105- 'developed as a result of exposun workers who had .died had suffered dioxin. The son's first contact with from soft-tissue cancers. * - chemical would have been only That represented 2.9 percent of the years . before his death. Norms deaths in the groups. This contrasts ..cancer takes many years -- 20 to 3 with 0.07 percent of the deaths from -to develop, Gaffey said. - soft-tissue, cancers -in the general Gaffey says that the excess o f ; population.,, . \ *. - -e tissue -cancers deserves study. Bi T he N a tio n a l I n s t i t u t e of consultant for Monsanto who Occupational. Safely and Health report studied the workers involved in the was followed by reports of other soft- accident at Nitro said he saw `tissue can cers' among chem ical significance in the national institu workers. A Dow scientist reported to . findings-- * Lancet in March 1981 that a worker at The consultant, D r ... Raymi Dow had a similar cancer. And two Suskind, said in a telephone inlerv doctors who studied workers at :: that the soft-tissue cancers in the 1 Monsanto's plant in Nitro found that a and . Monsanto workers w ere maintenance worker had died of a soft- /different that they would not re -tissue cancer. *. , * '..from the sam e cause. - > Finally, in July 1981, Dr. Frank E. ` ' / ' T h a t i s particularly- true, Johnson of the surgery department of Suskind says, of the cancer i St. Louis University Medical Center, ; developed in one or the, men he stud reported a rare case where a father and ; -a worker at the Nilro plant, . -, son working at Monsanto's - plant a t . / > H e-said that a pathologist Sauget-.' had developed soft-tissue ; studied the case for him said,that cancer. - cancer could not have resulted from The son, David Cluck of Belleville, same ca u se'as the other soft-ti: 111., died of cancer in 1930 at age 33. His.-, cancers noted in the national institu father, *' Elmer Cluck, lives outside study. - /.*'.;* * ' Edwardsville, 111. He is confined to a- Dr. Suskind rs "own study .of wheelchair. . - 7 workers a t Nitro has found no incres In an editorial in May 1932, Lancet', . amount of cancer. Dr. Suskind summarized the findings and called directorof the University of Cincin. them disturbing. It noted that earlier College of Medicine's Institute Swedish studies had shown an elevated Environmental Health. number of soft-tissue cancers among. ' Philip Landrigan, director*oi Swedish -lumberjacks exposed to division of surveillance and- f herbicides. But the publication stressed studies a t the National Institute the need for more study. .. Occupational Safety and Hea Dioxin,is a toxic chemical that can strongly disagreed with Dr. Suskind, cause a -severe skin disease called said that his pathologists believed 1 chloracne, .Dioxin has been found to all of the cancers could have resu cause cancer in laboratory mice. Bp*no*" from the sam e cause, definite link to cancer in humans has He said that Dr. Suskindi been shown. ' - "making a non-distinction *--/ ; Dioxin has contaminated the soil in making it after the fact." -f -- * parts of Missouri. But the workers at . Landrigan says he hopes that Monsanto and Dow who have developed national registry of dioxin workers i soft-tissue cancers probably were help determine whether the soft-tis exposed to much larger doses*of the cancers are related to dioxin exposur chemical than Missouri residents who The results will have lit live at or near dioxin-contaminated regulatory impact, because J sites. American workers are exposed For example, 121 Monsanto workers dioxin. were exposed to high levels of dioxin in The Environmental Protect' an accident in 1949 at the plant in Nitro Agency has banned the'manufacturt in which a section of piping was blown 2,4,5-T herbicide because or polenti: away by a runaway chemical reaction. adverse health effects. Dioxin is And Cl Dow workers were exposed to u n w a n t e d i m p u r i t y -in - t high levels of dioxin when the company manufacturing of the herbicide.