THEY KNEW BUT DID THEY CARE?

Today's Waterloo Region Record carries the following front page story and title "BF GOoodrich issued rubber health warning." While the focus is on BF Goodrich my favourite company, Uniroyal, was also mentioned. "Safety officials at Uniroyal, the city's other big rubber employer at the time, forwarded the BF Goodrich report on to their own toxicologists."

Two particular chemical compounds used in the rubber industry (Cure Rite 18 & OBTS) "... included the potential to cause cancer and "genetic mutations" that could be passed on to the children of rubber workers." BF Goodrich did propose better ventilation inside the factory as well as making respirators mandatory in departments that handled those two compounds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had also been investigating complaints from BF Goodrich employees in Ohio about "numerous cases of dermatitis and several cases of nausea and dizziness" among workers using solvents. I do recall in 1990 receiving a booklet produced by the Waterloo Public Interest Research Group (WPIRG) that listed various industrial solvents and their health effects upon humans. Benzene for example was listed as a cause of leukemia (blood cancer).

Local rubber workers had similar complaints. Cases of "rubber poisoning" included teeth having to be pulled, strange rashes and dizzy spells. In reality chemical companies in Germany and Switzerland had learned about the toxic effects of many chemicals and solvents used in the dye industry as far back as the late 1800s. Those cases included poisonings and cancers attributed to exposure to toxic industrial chemicals. It may have been a convenient myth that that information wasn't available in North America for another hundred years.