The MacNeil/Lehrer Report; D.b.c.p; DBCP

ROBERT MacNEIL: Good evening. Every time we turn around these days it seems that some chemical in common use is being identified as a cancer risk -- saccharin recently, hair coloring just the other day. But those are products we can choose to use or not; we don`t have to have sweet coffee, and you can let your hair go gray. Whether you want to or not is another matter.

But there are also numerous chemicals in wide use that you and I can`t avoid easily because they`re used in producing much of our food. The latest villain is DBCP, di-bromochloropropane. It is a pesticide used to eradicate the flatworm that attacks the roots of crops. DBCP has been found to cause sterility in male workers who manufacture it; it`s also reported to cause cancer in rats. The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to restrict its use in some nineteen root crops like carrots and radishes for fear that it could cause cancer in people, and a government ban is expected.

Tonight, the story of DBCP, but also the larger question it raises: how effective is our system for identifying these dangers and for safeguarding us from them? Jim?

JIM LEHRER: Robin, this DBCP story is sixteen years old, beginning in 1961 when Shell Oil and Dow Chemical asked for government okays to market DBCP pesticides for use on forty-four different crops. The two companies had conducted tests which showed that DBCP caused sterility and liver and kidney damage in laboratory animals. Using that information, the Food and Drug Administration then set permissible tolerance levels for the residue it might leave in the crops, and they were put on the market. Nemagon was Shell`s trade name; Dow called theirs Fumazone. Nothing official happened again until last year, when the Environmental Protection Agency began a review of DBCP after the National Cancer Institute said it had preliminary information showing it might cause cancer. Then last July and August workers of DBCP-making plants in Lathrop, California and Magnolia, Arkansas, aided by their union, charged that DBCP had made them sterile. Since then both Dow and Shell have halted production and sales of DBCP and recalled all existing stocks.

The Labor Department has issued special emergency standards to protect male workers from inhaling DBCP. The National Cancer Institute made public its study, which links cancer to DBCP. And the EPA restrictions and other actions followed quickly thereafter. The official in charge of EPA`s response is Dr. William Wells, Deputy Director of the agency`s Office of Special Pesticide Control. Doctor, the use of DBCP as I understand it now is not banned at this point, it`s just restricted. Is that correct?

WILLIAM WELLS: That`s partially correct. The uses on nineteen crops are suspended. The other uses of DBCP are permitted if the labeling is changed to reflect that it is restricted to use by certified applicators or applicators who have undergone an EPA-approved training course in the use of pesticides. That labeling change also requires the applicator to wear protective clothing and a respirator.

LEHRER: On what crops is it permissible to use it?

WELLS: Any crops not included in the nineteen.

LEHRER: You don`t have to list them all, but can you give us an idea of some of them on which they can still use it?

WELLS: Stone fruits -- peaches, crops of this nature; I believe grapes, pineapple ... there are a host of other crops; I can`t recall any others just now.

LEHRER: It`s basically crops that come directly out of the ground that it cannot be used on.

WELLS: That`s right, because we found residues in carrots and radishes; so based on that information and the likelihood that residues might also occur in other root crops, or crops grown in contact with soil, we included some seventeen other crops in the suspension portion of the order.

LEHRER: All right. Why have you elected not to ban its use complete

WELLS: Risk is something to be concerned about, but unless people are exposed to that risk there`s little to be gained from banning anything that poses that risk. We have no proof or evidence, that people were exposed, since we found no residues in these other crops. And we had no data that the other uses, the non-crop uses such as use on turf and grass and ornamentals, exposed people to DBCP.

LEHRER: Except those who might be applying it, and that`s the second part of your order, right?

WELLS: Yes. And we have a suspicion that there may be exposure but we have no data. So in the interim, since the issuance of that notice of intent to suspend, EPA has been conducting tests to determine exposure levels from those kinds of applications.

LEHRER: Would EPA have acted on this DBCP problem if it had not been for the headlines that were made by the actions of the discovery of the sterility problem that was raised at these two plants?

WELLS: Yes. We were scheduled to issue a notice of presumption against registration of DBCP...

LEHRER: Notice of presumption against registration.

WELLS: Yes, that`s a rather legal-sounding term which really means that we are triggering off an intensive risk-benefit analysis of DBCP.

LEHRER: And that was all in the works before the headlines.

WELLS: It was in the works; we had started in `76 and we would have issued that in early September.

LEHRER: All right. Dr. Wells, finally, those lab tests that Shell and Dow had conducted at universities in California and Michigan, I believe it was, in 1961, sixteen years ago -- why has it taken sixteen years to get to this point?

WELLS: Now you`re taking me back before EPA was in existence, but we should talk about that because those tolerances were based on the state of the art as it existed in the early sixties. At that time it was not known that DBCP, the organic compound, actually was translocated into plants, into the crops. It was thought that the inorganic bromide was of concern, and the tolerances were actually set on inorganic bromide, not...

LEHRER: Give me an example of what you mean by "inorganic bromide".

WELLS: That`s not part of a carbon chain, it`s the bromide itself...

LEHRER:I think I asked the wrong question. In a nutshell, what you`re saying is that you had no evidence at that point that DBCP could be transferred from the plant or a product of a plant, like a vegetable, into a human, is that correct?

WELLS: That`s right. The state of the art at that time showed that we shouldn`t be concerned about DBCP. Now that`s quite difficult to explain, but...

LEHRER: And I promise never to ask you what a bromide is again.

WELLS: (Laughing.) All right.

LEHRER: Robin?

MacNEIL: Dow Chemical, as we said, was one of the major producers of DBCP. In a statement to us today Dow`s Director of Health and Environmental Research said the company "is deeply concerned about its own and other employees who have been adversely affected by DBCP. When we learned of these problems we immediately suspended production and sales of this product and informed the government and the public of our actions." But the Dow statement added, "As of today, based on existing data, Dow continues to believe that adherence to the original 1961 recommendations would result in no adverse health effects .... The essence of the 1961 recommendation called for inhalation exposure below one part per million, time weighted average; avoidance of all skin contact; and decontamination if contact should occur." The Dow spokesman said that meant there would be no problem with DBCP if the 1961 guidelines had been followed.

Another major producer of the pesticide was Shell, which has also stopped production. The Washington representative for Shell`s Health, Safety and Environmental Division is biologist Dr. Edwin Hobson. Dr. Hobson, does Shell agree with Dow? Would there be no problem if people had stuck to the 1961 use guidelines?

EDWIN HOBSON: Robin, I`d have to say that we would not totally support that particular position, though it`s not beyond me to say that I think there`s a suggestion that after we develop more information within our own laboratories that there is a possibility that we could support Dow`s position on that particular question.

MacNEIL: Are we talking about two different things? One is the exposure of workers to the chemical itself, which is I guess what Dow is talking about and what your two companies were talking about back in 1961; and then this relatively new suspicion that the chemical works its way through vegetables.

HOBSON: A biological effect of a totally different nature.

MacNEIL: Right. Now if the people were guilty of failing to follow those guidelines, who was that?

HOBSON: I`m not sure what you mean by "failing to follow the guidelines".

MacNEIL: In the Dow statement, which you partially agreed with, they said that if people had stuck to the 1961 recommendations on the exposure of workers to it, protecting them from skin contact, inhalation and so on, there would be no health problem. Who didn`t stick to those recommendations?

HOBSON: I can`t speak for Dow, but perhaps over the last twenty years the material has been manufactured as a basic chemical in certain plants and formulated in others. Perhaps controls over excessive air levels of one part per million came about. There may have been spills, there may have been poor practices in some of the plants. This is a possibility, but I can`t say specifically what the problem was.

MacNEIL: Does Shell agree with the EPA reaction suspending the use of this in those nineteen crops?

HOBSON: We have, yes.

MacNEIL: You think that`s a good idea. Do you think that DBCP, based on what you know now, needs to be banned entirely, or that it could continue to be safely used in some ways?

HOBSON: We do believe that it can continue to be used in safe ways. Bill Wells didn`t expand on it, but we are putting restrictions on our labels which will result in no exposure to the applicator, and we believe with the other precautionary statements on the label that we will be able to continue to use di-bromochloropropane products. I did not say "manufacture," I said "use."

MacNEIL: Obviously this is going to hit some farmers very hard. Does Shell manufacture other pesticides which could do the same job against the flat worms which eat the roots of plants?

HOBSON: We do have another product which approaches in some instances the control of the worm that you alluded to, yes; but there are other instances where there are no substitutes to DBCP.

MacNEIL: I`d like to ask you this in conclusion: how do you know now that other chemicals you make, other pesticides and things, won`t later prove harmful to human beings in the way that DBCP now has been proved?

HOBSON: Robin, I don`t think there`s any way that anybody can assure that there isn`t going to be some new test determined or some new biological effect that none of us are aware of; but as we will get into later on, the requirements for registration of pesticides and the requirements for reviewing the data that`s already available for pesticides precludes the occurrence of such as you suggest from happening, except for brand new developing science of which there`s no indication of what the test might be.

Before you leave me at this point, I want to go back to something that Jim had indicated earlier. First of all, the suggestion was that we started marketing the DBCP products in 1961, and that is not true. Our plant was built and we started producing products in 1955.on the basis of data that had been submitted to the Department of Agriculture, the FDA and the Interior Department, who were responsible for registering pesticides. It was in 1961 that an application for a tolerance to cover the residues was submitted.

Secondly, he suggested that the sterility came up in 1961. That is not true. What developed in the tests that were prepared by the University of California was that in the rats there were shrunken testicles which at that time had no connection in any scientific sense with a sterility or a fertility problem. Pardon me for taking the time, but it`s an important distinction.

MacNEIL: I`m not sure I see the distinction, but...

LEHRER:I stand corrected, but I`m not sure how you corrected me. But we`ll come back to this in a moment because there`s another group concerned about the dangers of DBCP and other pesticides, and they`re of course the environmentalists. Dr. Robert Harris is a microbiologist and Associate Director of the Environmental Defense Fund`s Toxic Chemicals Program. Dr. Harris, are you satisfied with the actions of the government and industry to meet this current crisis over DBCP?

ROBERT HARRIS: I believe the actions that EPA and Shell and Dow have taken have been very responsible in the sense that it has been voluntarily recalled, the manufacture has been stopped. Certainly EPA, FDA and OSHA have acted in remarkable speed in comparison to past performances, so one can hardly criticize the government in this particular instance for not acting quick enough. Of course, this is action after the bodies have already appeared.

LEHRER: Okay, I want to get to that in a moment. Speaking now after the bodies have appeared, do you think there`s anything else that should be done? Are you in favor of a complete ban, say?

HARRIS: Well, I think so. A chemical which is as potent a carcinogen as this is -- and that`s something that we haven`t discussed a lot about this particular chemical -- we had that information in 1973.

LEHRER: You mean cancer-causing.

HARRIS: Right. We had that information in 1973; in fact, EDF has been using the information on DBCP in its case against Tris in children`s sleep-wear. One of the breakdown products of Tris is very similar to

DBCP -- in fact, DBCP is a contaminant of Tris and is present in low concentrations in children`s sleep-wear, so that information has been before regulatory agencies now for probably a year and a half. Certainly I think another very important part of this, and I think a great concern that we have, is what was alluded to before: are the chemicals that are going to be substituted ... Dow has a product, Shell has a product; both of these products are similar to DBCP. They are chlorinated hydrocarbons, which I would suspect would be mutagenic and carcinogenic. So, is this going to be a situation like others...

LEHRER: "Mutagenic", meaning what?

HARRIS: Meaning that it causes damage to genetic material...

LEHRER: Sterility, in other words.

HARRIS: Well, a mutagen could lead to sterility. Various types of properties of mutagens could be manifest in humans. Is this going to be another example -- and we`ve seen it time and time again -- of chemicals that are banned or voluntarily recalled, only to be replaced by chemicals which later turn out to be as bad? And I think that`s a central question in this issue.

LEHRER: Yes, and we want to get to that full-blown in a moment. But let me come back to DBCP specifically for a moment. What is your feeling about where the system -- if it was a system problem -- went wrong? During this past sixteen years, why did it take this long to get where we are right now?

HARRIS: It`s awfully easy in hindsight to say the industry goofed, the EPA, regulatory agencies, USDA goofed. We certainly know a great deal more about chemicals and their potential harm on humans today than we did fifteen or sixteen years ago. However, that information that was developed back in the middle fifties and early sixties should have been passed on in information to users; and as I understand, it was not adequately passed on to users. And also, information like that should be passed on to unions and to workers in the most effective form possible, and that did not occur. As I indicated, information has been before the EPA that DBCP was a carcinogen - - causes cancer -- in 1973, and clearly the agency has acted very slow on this chemical, as it has on most of the pesticides, in adequately regulating them.

LEHRER: Dr. Wells, why have you moved so slowly?

WELLS: Well, I`ll have to answer that by asking which one should we do next? We presently are doing this intensive risk-benefit analysis of some forty-five classes of chemicals. We simply don`t have enough people or money to do them all next week. We`re trying to do them in some order. Of those forty-five, in the last year we have already taken action on nineteen, and we will within the next month take action on about seven or eight more. By the end of the year I hope we will have completed that forty-five and we can then turn to the one hundred or more that have been referred to us that are sitting in a file cabinet until we have time...

LEHRER: That you just haven`t been able to get to yet.

WELLS: That`s right.

LEHRER: Dr. Hobson, how do you see industry`s responsibility in this overall area?

HOBSON: Well, we`ve covered a lot of areas...

LEHRER: Let`s talk about what we`re talking about, which is establishing whether or not a chemical, new or old, causes people to get cancer.

HOBSON: Well, Bill referred to a hundred chemicals that are in the file case over in EPA. But the evidence which supports those being on the referral list, as he will call it -- the referral list -- is extremely thin. I think Bill would admit that some of it is almost hearsay. Stuff from the field, people who are just complaining about one particular test that`s insignificant, and what they`re doing is reviewing that information to find out whether the accusation is even valid. Now those products stand accused on the basis of an extremely minimal amount of information.

HARRIS: But whose fault is that? Is that the EPA`s fault, or is that your fault, industry`s fault? Who`s responsibility is it to test chemicals which are sold as pesticides?

HOBSON: The pesticides that he`s talking about, the hundred in the cabinet, as well as the others that are under more intensive investigation, are supported by, in most cases, a wealth of toxicology research data. Is that not true, Bill?

WELLS: Yes, that`s true.

HOBSON:A wealth of data. There may be one bacterial test that indicates that there may be a positive response, let`s say, to a mutagenicity, a genetic effect, a test that most scientists don`t agree is valid at all as a determinant as to whether the product is a hazard to the animals, let alone man. And that information has to be reviewed before we can accuse those chemicals.

LEHRER: Let me ask you one question on the DBCP question, Dr. Hobson, back to Dr. Harris` point that industry had a responsibility that would include Dow and Shell, and specifically Shell in this case, to in form the workers and the unions, et cetera, of what those test results were in 1961 and alert them to the potential hazards. Did Shell do that?

HOBSON: Well, he said that those are the standards that we now have today. Back in those days we got the information -- not the fertility information but the other information; as he said, there were some liver questions -- and immediately a one part per million level was set for all work place areas for Dow and Shell. I frankly can`t tell you how far that information went out into the field. Our labels certainly reflected the general ... there were precautionary statements on the labels at that time that went out to the users to alert them to whatever problems there might be.

LEHRER: All right. Robin?

MacNEIL: Well, as we`ve indicated, it isn`t only DBCP`s. The list of pesticides banned or under restriction is growing every year. In January 1973 DDT was banned. In August 1974 EPA banned Aldrin and Dieldrin, used against insects affecting corn crops. In December 1975 two pesticides used widely for home gardening, Chlordane and Heptachlor, were banned. In August 1976 EPA banned Kepone, used as an ant and roach poison; and Myrex, used against fire ants, is banned after June 1978. Leptophos, which caused nerve damage in ten workers in a Houston plant a year ago, has been banned in this country but can still be made here and sold abroad.

My question to all you gentlemen is, is the system, do you consider, adequate to review the chemicals now in use as well as the new ones in, or do you, based on what you said a moment ago, Dr. Wells, need a greatly increased staff in order to be able to continue this investigation and do it fast enough and adequately enough?

WELLS: There`s no question that to do the job faster we must have more resources. As Ed Hobson alluded to, the data that supports pesticides is developed over some twenty or more years, and the state of the art has changed a great deal. One of the greatest tasks facing the Environmental Protection Agency is that we must re-examine some 33,000 pesticide products to determine what the current status of those products is with regard to safety.

MacNEIL: 33,000?

WELLS: That`s individual products, yes.

MacNEIL: And I presume some of those come in chemical groups and you can do more than forty-five brand names in a year.

WELLS: Yes, they would. We would try to handle them as groups. Now, some of them may be perfectly safe. We have encountered problems with some of the data that we thought was valid, because we have found that some of the independent testing laboratories have done very questionable things with the data and we find that we have to re-examine the data itself, we can`t even rely on data as being valid data without a reexamination. We`ve had to instigate a laboratory audit program to check on the practices of laboratories that supply the data.

MacNEIL: Dr. Hobson, I`m wondering, from the point of industry, which manufactures these things and sells them in good conscience until something is discovered against them, would a firm like Shell not be very worried that there might be in the whole range of pesticides now being sold things equally damaging to the ones we`ve discussed? Let me put the question better. Is it right, given the amount of growing public anxiety about these things, to be putting things on the market and then discovering, after they`ve been used for a long time, that they`re dangerous?

HOBSON: Robin, that is really a major overstatement. They are not put on the market without any testing. As even Dr. Harris can attest to, the Environmental Agency now has the most rigorous requirements for registration of pesticides that you could imagine.

MacNEIL: Is that new pesticides?

HOBSON: Those are new pesticides.

MacNEIL: What about the existing ones?

HOBSON: The old pesticides are to be reviewed by the exact same standards.

MacNEIL: I see. Given that the state of the art, as you`ve both been saying, has improved quite a bit in recent years, more is known so that the testing can be more rigorous than it was?

HOBSON: I`d have to say that is valid.

MacNEIL: Are you satisfied, Dr. Harris, that the system is adequate at the moment, as between industry`s responsibility and the government`s?

HARRIS: No, I`m not, but I was going to ask a question of Mr. Hobson before I answer that, if I could, Robin. I understand that Dow and Shell right now are marketing a substitute for DBCP; I think Shell calls it DD, is that correct?

HOBSON: That`s right.

HARRIS: And Dow calls it Telone. Could you tell us what testing has been done of those two chemicals, because these two are fairly similar to DBCP; they`re a dichlorinated product, similar to DBCP. As I understand, it doesn`t have bromine, but very similar. And I would suspect that both of these products are cancer causing and likely to cause sterility. Now, have there been tests?

MacNEIL: You have about thirty seconds, Dr. Hobson.

HOBSON: The suspicion is what I objected to. There is a wide range of toxicology information supporting both DD and Telone. What has not been done are the chronic toxicity studies, which may last for two years, and that`s been done on the basis that there are no residues of these materials in the food crops following the use of the materials.

MacNEIL: We have to leave it there, gentlemen. Thank you, doctors three, for joining us this evening. Good night, Jim.

LEHRER: Good night, Robin.

MacNEIL: That`s all for tonight. Jim Lehrer and I will be back tomorrow night. I`m Robert MacNeil. Good night.