Government
EPA's own health practices not up to snuff Survey by GAO shows agency has no health monitoring program for lab employees involved in handling toxic and dangerous substances While the Environmental Protection Agency has been attending to the health of the general public, it has apparently neglected to protect the health of its own laboratory personnel. To wit: The agency provides no health monitoring program for laboratory employees who are involved in the everyday collection, analysis, and research involving highly toxic and dangerous substances. About 3500, or 37% of EPA's employees, are exposed to hazardous substances. And often employees who have suffered ill effects from exposure are not given the necessary health care. These are the findings reported by the General Accounting Office after it completed a survey of health monitoring practices at EPA's laboratories which included visiting 11 of the agency's 60 laboratories. GAO finds that both at EPA's headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in the field, the emphasis is on safety—accident and fire prevention— issues with minimal attention to health issues. EPA agrees with GAO's conclusions and has instituted corrective measures, says Alvin L. Aim, assistant administrator for planning and management. EPA has no centralized safety and health program, GAO points out in the report. Field laboratories are directed to manage their own safety and health programs. At EPA's headquarters, safety and health officials are unaware of which employees should participate in health monitoring programs, the types of hazardous operations conducted in laboratories, the types and amounts of hazardous exposures, and whether known carcinogens are handled, used, or stored in the laboratories. Instead of reporting to a designated safety and health director, for example, EPA safety and health officials report to the director of the facilities and support division that provides space for the agency's laboratories. Further, the report says, safety and health officials in EPA field laboratories also are unaware of their health responsibilities and are focusing their attention on safety issues. They generally are not properly trained to detect harmful health 12
C&EN Nov. 1, 1976
Aim: corrective measures instituted conditions, the report adds. In addition, health responsibilities often are assigned to invididuals as collateral duties. Laboratory personnel in general are not given physicals when first employed. Of the 1329 personnel in the 11 laboratories GAO inspected, about 59% are exposed to hazardous substances in the course of performing studies on virology, bacteriology, cancer, pesticides formulation, and toxicity, and in air and water sampling and emissions testing. At one laboratory, says the report, every item in the Department of Health, Education & Welfare's registry of 16,500 toxic substances was on hand for possible use. At another lab, 14 substances that are on the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health's list of carcinogens were located. The report cites specific problems at each of the 11 laboratories. At one Research Triangle Park, N.C., facility, for instance, four employees were exposed to dioxin when it was accidently released in the lab. These employees were given physical examinations but since no baseline physicals were given, their conditions could not be adequately assessed. At another lab, also in Research Triangle Park, three employees suffered ill effects after exposure to nitric acid and hydrochloric acid fumes but were not given medical examinations, the report finds. And at a pesticides lab in Washington, D.C., a GAO physician looked into the deaths of four employees who died of cancer. He suggested that in at least one case, there is a possible relationship between exposure to benzene over a 12-year period and death caused by acute myelocytic leukemia. As a result of the physician's investigation, an EPA industrial
hygienist visited the lab and recommended that operations there be discontinued until conditions could be improved and until employees could be included in a medical monitoring program according to their exposures to specific pesticides, solvents, and other reagents. The agency closed the facility last June. The hygienist subsequently made similar observations at pesticides laboratories in Denver and Annapolis, Md. These laboratories also were closed. EPA employees at an Athens, Ga., lab perform analyses to identify the types and amounts of pollutants in industrial and environmental discharge samples, which they collect themselves or receive from outside sources. GAO finds that the workers often do not know the type or concentration of substances being collected or analyzed. For instance, two employees collected air samples for a nine-day period outside an industrial plant that produced vinyl chloride. They did not wear respirators as required by Occupational Safety & Health Administration regulations and were exposed to concentrations in excess of the regulations. Another employee did not know what he was sampling and suffered chemical burns on his hands after collecting a river sample containing chlordane, heptachlor, and endrin. None of the employees, the report says, received monitoring physicals before or after the exposures. EPA's Aim goes along with GAO's findings. He says that the agency has begun a survey of its labs and has identified deficiencies that in many instances are directly related to procedures for handling and general housekeeping practices. Lab directors have been notified of the deficiencies and have been directed to take immediate corrective action, Aim adds. Further, EPA will be implementing formal medical monitoring of all lab personnel, Aim tells GAO. To begin with, the agency will give specific baseline physicals to employees. An occupational safety and health steering committee will be established at the highest level within the agency. This committee, Aim explains, will review current and future courses of action, policies, and procedures and will recommend additional steps necessary to ensure safe and healthy working conditions. Immediate steps are being taken, he adds, at each laboratory to designate a qualified occupational health officer to ensure compliance with approved procedures and protocol and to facilitate establishing an effective medical monitoring program. •
