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in health and safety expenditures. “If I fail to pay my bill at the Holiday Inn, I’ll be labeled a credit risk in a minute,” Mazzocchi says. “Here we are in a highly-computerized society. But there is no methodical record-keeping of cancer or birth defects.” Dr. Legator says that the means are now available to curtail the occupational diseases epidemic that the federal government estimates kills 100,000 workers a year. \(From 20% to 38% of all cancers are also job-related, the Carter Adminisries of urine, blood and sperm tests could serve as “an advance warning system” which would indicate if a person’s health is endangered. “It won’t say, ‘He has cancer,’ ” Dr. Legator says. “But it will tell you if an individual is exposed to something detrimental.” “This would just be a biological counterpart to a radiation badge,” Dr. Legator says. “There’s a whole battery of tests we can do. They’re easy and non-invasive and inexpensive. They’re also more indicative than 90% of the stupid tests that already are being done.” Legatbr and other industry critics say the tests aren’t being run because, once hazards are pinpointed, cleanup costs or even abandonment of unsafe products or processes might be necessary. The alternative, Dr. Legator warns, is to continue the present system in which the workers learn about risks of new chemicals and technology only after it’s too late. As J. William Lloyd, an OSHA epidemiologist has said, “Almost everything we know about occupational cancer comes from counting dead bodies.” The Reagan administration, though, has called for an era of cooperation between government and industry. However desirable that sounds, it means workers will continue to rely on their employers for safety and health information on men like Union Carbide’s Dr. Glenn or John Leverton, a Union Carbide industrial hygienist. “They learn about specific chemicals,” Leverton said of Union Carbide’s industrial hygiene education program. “But we don’t tell them all the air around here is bad, because we don’t believe that it is. We try to make them aware that their own health habits, like smokare harmful. Of course, I don’t think any of us know as much about cancer as we’d like to know.” In a period marked by what Douglas Costle, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has termed “Reagan’s regulatory retreat,” workers may, be left to their own devices. Consider the actions taken by two sons of Union Carbide workers who died of glioblastoma. James Harvey Stiles III, a 33-year-old mechanic at the NASA space center, said he once turned down a job at the Diamond-Shamrock chemical plant in Pasadena. “There was just a lot of dust, dirt and noise out there,” he said. “I was afraid that my car would be destroyed if I left it in the company parking lot. And if it takes the paint off your car, you can imagine what it’s doing to your lungs.” Glyn Ott, also 33, is another workingman whose father died of glioblastoma after taking a job at Union Carbide. Like his late father, Ott works at the same plant. He listed some of the chemicals he’s exposed to: carbon monoxide, aldehydes, acids, caustics, cobalt acetate. When he has his choice, however, he refuses to work in the area of the plant where his father spent most of his working life. It’s called the “Vinylite area,” he said. “I refuse to go into that area if I don’t have to,” the pipefitter explained. “Sometimes I go there. But if it’s overtime, and I have my choice, I don’t. Especially since vinylchloride is a strong suspect in my father’s death.” Paul Sweeney is an Observer contributing editor. classifie DELICIOUS HOLIDAY TREATS “0 d’ texas Family Dessert Recipes. cookbook “Old $4 postpaid, Box 907, Cedar Hill, Texas 75104. REASON magazine America’s leading Wiertarian monthly; news and analysis of cur.rnt political and economic trends. Contrib include Thomas Szasz, Murray hard, Nathaniel Branden, Karl Hess. If you are concerned with personal freedom. REASON is for you. Current issue $2.00; Special Finance issue $2.00; from PACIFIC :SUNRISE TRADING COMPANY, 1712 S. 441-4565. Free booklist on request, or visit our store. Anatomy Is Destiny Should Be Left Alone Democrat. $8 each plus $2 postage & handling. Specify color \(Red, Blue, Green, White, T-Attoyac, Box 4112, Austin, Texas 78765. COMMUNITY ORGANIZERS ACORN needs organizers to work with low and moderate income families in 16 states for political and economic justice. 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