tion is provided by the treatment plants. According to EPA, implementa tion of these regulations will reduce the amount of priority pollutants discharged into the nation's water ways by an estimated 590,000 lb a year. Discharge of nonconventional pesticide pollutants would be re duced an estimated 770,000 lb per year. About 40% of the 117 manufac turing plants in the industry already are operating treatment facilities that meet the proposed standards, EPA says. It estimates that bringing the other plants into compliance will take $56.7 million in capital invest ment and $45 million per year in operating expenses. These costs, the agency says, could result in the clos ing of three plants and four produc tion lines. D
NRC asks for delay in agent orange study In a week that brought thousands of Vietnam veterans to Washington, D.C., for four days of ceremonies paying tribute to their military service, the National Research Coun cil, the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommended delaying the start of the Congressionally mandated study of the pos sible health effects of exposure of U.S. ground troops in Vietnam to the herbicide agent orange. The Veterans Administration had planned to begin the pilot study for this epidemiological study on Jan. 1, 1983. However, the NRC report recommends that this pilot be de layed until findings are available from a similar study called "Ranch Hand" that is being conducted by the Air Force. These results will be available in late spring, the Air Force says. The Ranch Hand study data "should have a significant impact on the direction, methods, and procedures" of the ground troop study, the NRC report says. "The loss of time involved in waiting for these results should be more than made up through refinements in method and increased focus on key end results." NRC is only the latest group to criticize the proposed ground troop study. The protocol for the study already has been reviewed by pan els at the White House, the Office of Technology Assessment, VA, and veterans' organizations. Most find fault with it in one way or another.
Chief among the criticisms has been a dissatisfaction with the way VA plans to classify which soldiers re ceived high or low levels of exposure to the herbicide; the fact that only two exposure levels will be studied, so that dose-response relationships cannot be seen; and the secrecy sur rounding the questionnaire itself. The NRC report touches all these points. It calls the proposed proto col for the study "a document that is already worn around the edges insofar as it can be regarded as a blueprint for any likely action." In stead of providing another review of the protocol, the NRC panel pre sents its own views—solicited and otherwise—on the broad issues that it says the planners of the study must face in the next few months. The NRC study was made at the request of VA. However, partly in response to the criticisms of the Of fice of Technology Assessment ear lier this fall, responsibility for conducting the study is being shifted from VA to the Centers for Disease Control, part of the Department of Health & Human Services. HHS Sec
retary Richard S. Schweiker has agreed that CDC will conduct the study, but the formal agreement spelling out exactly which agency is responsible for what has yet to be drawn up. Consequently, VA spokes men say that it would be inappropri ate for them to comment on the NRC report except to say they hope the report will not cause any delay in the study. CDC says that it is not in charge of the study yet, and it, too, should not comment on the NRC report. One group that will comment is the National Veterans Law Center, a Washington, D.C., group that has represented veterans in cases involv ing agent orange. The NRC report is a "fairly serious indictment of the government's work, or lack of it," in trying to address the question of possible ill effects to veterans ex posed to agent orange in Vietnam, says the center's director, Lewis Milford. He says his group agrees with the major findings of the NRC study but disagrees that there should be any more delay in beginning the study. D
U.S. scientists rare birds in European labs Over the past decade, transatlantic I West European labs—except in large interactions between U.S. and Euro and unique facilities, such as the big pean scientists, such as a postdoc accelerator research centers. toral year abroad and certain forms These findings, their causes, their of collaborative research, have de consequences, and what to do about clined. Although exchanges among them are discussed in a just-pub West European countries have been lished study, "International Mobil increasing, U.S. scientists and engi ity of Scientists and Engineers." It neers are becoming rare birds in most reports on a workshop held in Lisbon last year by representatives from pri vate and governmental scientific and Flow of new U.S. scientists technological organizations from 15 West European countries, Canada, to Europe fell in 1970s Japan, and the U.S. The workshop 3 Number was sponsored by the North Atlan 300 tic Treaty Organization's Science Committee, the European Science 250 Foundation, and the U.S. National Research Council. The decline seems to be due to a 200 ~JtM% number of factors: decreasing sci ence budgets, increased costs and inflation, a stronger desire for job 150 ^ ^ ^ g ^ j , security in the face of limited em ployment opportunities, more dual100 career families, and inhibiting na tional tax, immigration, labor, and other policies. The report expresses 50 Pll' #^^^^^^^^^^^P concern, stressing that "international mobility of scientists and engineers 0 f?C ι WÊËMÊ^t WÊÊÊÊÊ^, is important to the excellence of the 19CÎ9 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 7ί) scientific enterprise, the health of a U.S. scientists and engineers taking first-year technologically based industries, and postdoctoral appointments in Western Europe. the intellectual and professional Source: National Research Council I growth of the individual." G
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