Communication to workers of epidemiology study results: an industry approach.

Communication to workers of epidemiology study results is gaining increasing emphasis because of the need to notify study subjects and the responsibility to warn workers of potential workplace hazards. Industry has a unique responsibility in this regard both for ethical reasons and for gains in improving workers' knowledge of workplace hazards. We describe our recent efforts to notify 9648 workers potentially interested in the results of an epidemiology study that found increased rates for cancer. We found that both study and nonstudy subjects were equally interested the findings. We conclude that most workers view the notification as evidence of the company's commitment to maintain a safe workplace, and are pleased that the company undertook the study and reported the results to them. Unfavorable comments comprised less than 1% of the responses.

The mortality experience of workers exposed to 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin in a trichlorophenol process accident.

Epidemiologic studies on dioxin, specifically 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), have not consistently found an increased cancer risk. This study examines mortality rates for 754 employees at a chemical plant after an accident in 1949 in which 122 workers developed chloracne from high exposure to TCDD. We also examined exposure to 4-aminobiphenyl, a potential bladder carcinogen. Although the numbers are small, and confounding factors cannot be ruled out, workers exposed to 4-aminobiphenyl who developed chloracne from the accident had increased mortality rates from soft tissue sarcoma, bladder cancer, and respiratory cancer. All soft tissue sarcomas occurred among workers with potential 4-aminobiphenyl exposure, whereas no soft tissue sarcomas occurred among workers with TCDD exposure alone. In these workers, exposure to TCDD alone at levels great enough to cause chloracne was not associated with increased cancer rates.

[Status of the antioxidant system and lipid peroxidation in rat liver after poisoning animals with aminobiphenyl]. / Sostoianie antioksidantnoi sistemy i perekisnogo okisleniia lipidov v pecheni krys posle intoksikatsii zhivotnykh aminobifenilami.

It was found that intoxication of animals with aminobiphenyls leads to the activation of such glutathione-dependent enzymes as glutathione-S-transferase and glutathione reductase. This is accompanied by the induction of activities of individual isoforms of the multifunctional family of glutathione-S-transferases. There was a decrease in the glutathione peroxidase activity after intoxication with benzidine derivatives. It was found that the GSH content in rat liver decreased after benzidine intoxication and sharply increased after effects of 3,3'-dimethylbenzidine and 3,3'-dimethoxybenzidine. In all cases studied there was a diminution in the level of diene conjugates. It was supposed that the specificity of the catalytic glutathione redox system reaction is due to structural peculiarities of the aminobiphenyls being injected. Analysis of functional pairs of glutathione-dependent enzymes revealed a certain imbalance in the antioxidant system function after aminobiphenyl poisoning.

[Use of immunologic tests in periodic preventive examinations of workers involved in benzidine production]. / Ispol'zovanie immunologicheskikh testov pri periodicheskikh profilakticheskikh osmotrakh rabochikh, zaniatykh v proizvodstve benzidina

In 95 workers engaged in benzidine production the results of the cutaneous delayed hypersensitivity response to the injection of tissue embryonal antigen were studied, 76 of them were additionally examined for application of 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene (DNCB). Studies on the state of the immune response of the workers' organism were conducted in association with clinical and cytoscopic findings. The immunological tests applied during prophylactic examinations revealed, according to objective signs, a group of persons with immunological defects. And just in this group pretumor conditions and occupational vesical tumors were detected. The results of the authors' observations made it possible to recommend an application of the tests reflecting the state of cell immunity, to determine immunological defects in such workers as adjuvant methods for periodic prophylactic examinations.

Experience of tumors in a British plant handling 3 3' dichlorobenzidine.

Dichlorobenzidine has been handled at a plant in Britain over the past thirty years. No case of cancer of the bladder has been found in the exposed population. The population of two hundred and 25 is not large enough to prove DCB will not cause tumors, but a negative incidence, taken with American experience and European figures, (unpublished) suggest that the measures advocated by Scott and Williams and at present adopted provide a satisfactory code of practice.