CANCER RISKS DUE TO CHEMICALS IN LOCAL INDUSTRIES

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Former Goodrich worker warned others of cancer risk". Campbell Robertson died Saturday of bladder cancer which the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (former Workers'Compensation) blamed on his relatively brief time working at BF Goodrich in Kitchener. The rubber industry use a wide array of carcinogenic chemicals in their processing of rubber into various products. Company names mentioned in the Record's article include Dominion Tire, Epton Industries, Uniroyal and Canadian Consolidated Rubber.

One of the chemicals mentioned in this article is betanaphthylamine which is an antioxidant used to prevent the rubber from breaking down prematurely. It has been banned since the 1970's for use in factory production. Unfortunately various naphthylamines and other carcinogenic compounds that were used in local industry can end up not only in the air but also in the ground and groundwater. Elmira has a who's who of carcinogenic compounds from various sources still so located. Also just to put things in perspective bladder cancer was being diagnosed in Germany back in the 1880's amongst workers at Hoescht Chemicals. There chemicals similar to those used in the rubber industry were being used in the dyes and pigments industries.

The former Varnicolor has significant quantities of naphthalene in their groundwater. Naphthalene is essentially two benzene rings joined together. Naphthylamine would consist of an amine joined to naphthalene. Amines are one of the building blocks to our NDMA found throughout Elmira with the A in NDMA standing for Amine.

Getting back to Elmira reminds me of one of the longstanding excuses used by Chemtura. During the late 90's when they were fumigating the citizens on Duke St. during the night; they insisted that the fumes weren't toxic they were simply odourous. Basically they were saying that these fumigations won't kill you, they are simply unpleasant odours. I wonder if the same excuses were used by either BF Goodrich or any other companies when workers complained of smells and other symptoms?

Many of these manmade chemicals are highly toxic. Some of them eventually get banned after the fact. Health effects can be immediate or down the road. One thing you can count on and that is that citizens and workers have not and will not receive adequate information early enough to protect themselves and their families.