Fear no more
Editorial
Copyright 1999 Washington Times
March 16, 1999
BODY:
They were linked to cancer, birth defects and wildlife
contamination. They were
PCBs, and lawmakers hastily passed legislation in the mid-1970s to
limit their
production and use.
On Wednesday the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and
Environmental
Medicine is scheduled to publish a study showing that as a matter
of fact,
PCBs aren't such
a big risk after all.
"This is the largest cohort of male and female workers exposed
to
PCBs," the study says.
"The lack of any significant elevations in the site-specific
cancer mortality of
the production workers adds important information about human
health effects of
PCBs."
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were attractive to
industry for a variety of
reasons. They could serve as insulation in large transformers, and
they were
nonflammable, which reduced the risks of fire. At one time
insurance companies
and building codes actually required the use of
PCB-friendly electrical equipment.
But when the chemical began
turning up in landfills and rivers, panic set in. In 1975 the
Centers for
Disease Control found that rats fed large doses of a certain kind
of
PCBs over an extended period developed liver cancer, and that was
all lawmakers
needed to know; the stuff had to
go.
But because
PCBs lingered in the environment, questions have arisen about how
to clean them up.
General Electric Co., for one, faces possible costs in the
hundreds of
millions of dollars for removing
PCBs discharged into the Hudson River from its factories.
Activists are concerned
that
PCB-tainted
fish may eventually cause cancer in the humans who eat them.
The latest study findings should ease those concerns.
Focused on some 7,000
men and women who worked in two GE plants between 1946 to 1976 who
were exposed
to
PCBs on the job, the research did
find high levels of the chemical in their blood. But it did not
find
correspondingly higher numbers of cancer-related deaths. It found
fewer. Some
400 cancer deaths is what one would predicted in the 1,195 workers
who had
died, given average rates of cancer. The study
found just 353.
"The bottom line," said the study's author,
Renate Kimbrough,
"is looking at all of these workers and doing all of these
analyses, we did not
find any significant health effect" from
PCBs. Government regulators should keep that in mind when they
order
PCB cleanup and disposal.
Comments on this posting?
Click here to
post a public comment on the Trash Talk
Bulletin Board.
Click here to send a private
comment to the Junkman.