Dioxin studies in U.K., U.S.

Press, 12 May 1980, Page 5

Dioxin studies in U.K., U.S.

NZPA _, London Two of Britain’s biggest trade unions will organise independent health tests for chemical workers be-

lieved to have been exposed to the deadly contaminant, dioxin. The decisions by the unions follows the release by a Government committee of a medical report w’hich showed that men who had worked at the Coalite and Chemical Products plant in Derbyshire were not suffering from any “overt disease.” Doctors tried to establish whether the men were suffering any long-term effects from possible dioxin exposure when an explosion at. Coalite Bolsover plant in 1968 killed a chemist and injured seven others. The examinations were made after the widespread publicity given to a similar explosion at the northern Italian town of Seveso in 1976. The Association, of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs, which has 300 members at the plant, is pressing for a full-scale independent investigation into possible links between chemicals made at the plant and heart disease. Twenty-one of its members have had tests for heart and liver conditions.

The Transport and General Workers’ Union — Britain’s biggest — has chosen 35 of its members at the plant for separate medical checks.

As well, it has been reported from Washington that the United States National Academy of Sciences has criticised a proposed Air Force study as unlikely to detect whether Agent Orange which" contains dioxin has hurt the health of 1200 airmen who sprayed the herbicide over the jungles of Vietnam. A scientific panel of the academy said the Air Force study had a “low probability of detecting an effect” (from exposure to the herbicide.) The study is intended to determine whether the 1200 airmen who sometimes became drenched in Agent Orange during the Air Force’s “operation ranch hand” spraying programme have suffered adverse health effects. An organisation of “ranch hand” veterans says none of its members has" reported a deterioration of their health. Many thousands of American servicemen may have been exposed to the spray on the ground and 100,000 of them attribute disease ranging from nervousness to cancers to exposure to the herbicide.