The Chemical World This Week
SCIENCE AND POLITICS: FRUSTRATED RELATION
"I find that one of the great challenges of the future will be to differentiate what science and technology
can do from what they cannot do.
Their promise is great. They can and
will continue to make dramatic
breakthroughs in field after field.
They can continue to significantly
improve the human condition. But I
fear that people have too much faith
in their miracles—that the cornucopia of their benefits can seriously excuse, postpone, and delay some public
policy considerations that we must
institute."
Speaking "only as a public policy
maker who worries a lot," Colorado
governor Richard D. Lamm last week
in Denver nevertheless underscored
the theme of the 143rd Annual
Meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science:
Science and Change—Hopes and
Dilemmas. The address was but an
opening statement in a week that saw
AAAS exploring changes, hopes, and
dilemmas through symposia on such
topics as "scientific freedom and responsibility" and "science: the key to
our political future."
To Lamm, "We must disenthrall
ourselves from the conceitful notion
that science is the key to our political
future. It is only one key and likely
not the major one. The social innovations are equally or more important
than the scientific ones."
Neither political nor scientific solutions are keeping up with the pace
of problems, Lamm believes. "We live
in a hinge of history," he says, and
"we will see dramatic change in the
years ahead. Some of this change will
be helpful—some harmful—but on
balance I believe that the crises we are
faced with are moving us into the
most hazardous time of human history . . . and neither the politicians
nor the scientific community is prepared for the nature and extent of
change."
The public today, Lamm says,
looks to both scientists and politicians
to help them out of the "Niagara of
problems" that are coming at them.
But the scientific and political communities are frustrated in their relationship. "Truth is, we have very little
leadership in politics anymore—we
have umpires
Science is a process
that seeks truth—politics is a process
that seeks survival.
6
C&ENFeb. 28, 1977
Lamm: more wisdom needed
"We can lament this fact, criticize
it roundly, pray for 'profiles in courage.' But inevitably we are surely to
live our future as we have observed in
our history—with 'survivability' as an
overriding consideration in virtually
every political judgment."
It is against this difference in cultures that Lamm, as a policy maker,
evaluates the contributions and failures of the science and technology
community. He finds in that community a frequent tendency to formulate problems narrowly—to have
a specialized tunnel vision that does
not see or fully appreciate all the
public policy factors of a decision.
In addition to finding too often
single-dimensional solutions to multifaceted problems, Lamm says, scientists often tend to ignore resource
limitations and the agony of politically implementing many of the proposed solutions. "We speak to each
other across our 'two cultures' but we
seldom communicate." This, Lamm
maintains, is not only the fault of
public officials. What is needed, more
than bright minds, he says, is wisdom.
"Science at best is not wisdom. It is
knowledge, while wisdom is knowledge tempered with judgment. This
judgment is too often missing in the
accelerating pace of scientific advance."
•
Vinylidene chloride linke I to cancer
Vinylidene chloride, a plastics monomer widely used in food wraps, has
been linked to formation of kidney
cancers in mice. Dr. Cesare Maltoni of
the University of Bologna, Italy, told
a scientific workshop in New York
City last week of inhalation studies in
his laboratory where 20 to 25% of 120
male Swiss mice exposed to 25 ppm
vinylidene chloride in air developed
kidney carcinomas. These represent
the first clear data linking exposure to
the chemical with cancer, says Dr. E.
Cuyler Hammond, vice president for
epidemiological research at the
American Cancer Society.
On chemical grounds, vinylidene
chloride, or 1,1-dichloroethylene,
appears to be an excellent candidate
to be a carcinogen, Hammond explains, because of its structural similarity to vinyl chloride and trichloroethylene, both known carcinogens.
For this reason, Maltoni has been
conducting two-year inhalation
studies of the compound in rats, mice,
and hamsters. The Manufacturing
Chemists Association also has been
sponsoring inhalation and ingestion
studies of the compound in rats and
hamsters. The MCA studies, conducted since 1974 at Dow Chemical in
Midland, Mich., have not shown any
incidence of carcinogenicity, according to Dow, nor have any of Maltoni's
studies on any animal other than the
Swiss mouse. However, the Food &
Drug Administration is required
under the Delaney clause to ban from
food contact uses a substance that is
a carcinogen in any animal.
Vinylidene chloride is used in copolymers to impart fire retardance
and impermeability to gases. The
most important copolymers are with
vinyl chloride and with acrylonitrile,
both called saran. There are two U.S.
producers of the monomer, Dow and
PPG Industries. Dow estimates that
saran production is about 150 million
lb per year, the majority of which is
used in food wraps, including Dow's
consumer product Saran Wrap.
There is no evidence that there is
any residual monomer in food wraps
containing vinylidene chloride, or
that if there were it would leach into
food, Hammond emphasizes. He calls
on FDA and other regulatory agencies
to evaluate the possible risk of vinyl idene chloride exposure in light of
Maltoni's findings.
Both Dow and PPG have studied
the health of their workers exposed to
vinylidene chloride, PPG going back
for seven years, and Dow for more
than 20 years. Although the studies
are limited in size, neither shows any
adverse health effects attributable to
exposure to the chemical.
•
ERDA R&D funds cut in
revised federal budget
When the Carter Administration
disclosed its revised fiscal year 1978
budget last week, there were few
surprises. The President was on record that he would cut military
spending. He did. He had promised to
step up federal spending for social
programs and economic stimulus. He
did these things, too. Former nuclear
engineer Carter also had promised to
give nuclear energy less emphasis—
which he did.
Federal support of R&D was little
changed, except for a new emphasis
on energy. No one really expected a
change anyhow since the amount of
money the government spends on
R&D is somewhat hard to find in a
total budget of $459.4 billion, the
President's new estimate for fiscal
1978. This is $19.4 billion more than
proposed by President Ford
Most affected under the new budget proposal is the Energy Research
& Development Administration. Although the agency's total budget has
changed little at $7.8 billion (down
$87 million from the Ford plan),
ERDA's R&D programs have been
cut a hefty $102 million, largely at the
expense of the fast breeder reactor. At
the same time, funds for energy conservation activities have been more
than doubled, to $318 million.
Breeder reactor biggest loser
in revamped ERDA R&D budget
$ Millions
Conservation
Fossil energy
Solar heating/cooling
Solar electric
Geothermal
Fusion power
Fast breeder reactor
Nuclear fuel cycle and
safeguards
Other fission
Special foreign currency
funds
TOTAL
Previous Amended Change
$158
598
45
260
88
513
855
636
148
2
$3303
$318 $1160
640
42
90
45
215
-45
88
-0
433
-80
656 - 1 9 9
611
148
-25
-0
2
-0
$3201 $ - 1 0 2
Hardest hit in ERDA's R&D authority is the liquid-metal fast
breeder reactor, for which funds
would be cut $199 million, or 23%,
from the $855 million proposed by the
Ford Administration. Also slashed by
Carter would be R&D funds for fusion power development, down $80
million to $433 million, and solar
electric R&D, down $45 million from
Ford's earlier proposed budget to
$215 million.
Total spending for solar energy
R&D remains flat at $305 million, but
this figure reflects a cut of $55 million
from the central-receiver electric
power plant project. About $45 million of the savings would be used to
pay for 1300 new demonstration solar
collector units for homes and buildings. The balance would be spread
around for fuels from biomass, photovoltaics, and a solar receiver project
development.
Meanwhile,
environmentalists
were cheered somewhat by President
Carter's proposal to add 600 jobs at
the Environmental
Protection
Agency. In a prepared statement,
EPA administrator designate Douglas M. Costle said the 600 new
employees would go primarily into
positions in the toxic substances and
solid wastes areas.
•
Carbon tet spill causes
stir along Ohio River
At press time last week, the remains
of an estimated 70 tons of carbon
tetrachloride mixed with large volumes of river water was moving down
the Ohio River in the vicinity of Evansville, Ind. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency was
trying to find out how the poisonous
compound got in the river in the first
place.
EPA has been surveying the Ohio
River for organic contaminants for
several years. Low levels of carbon
tetrachloride contamination, on the
order of a few parts per billion, have
been a chronic problem. Concentrations were unusually high during
January and February, with peaks as
high as 100 ppb at Cincinnati's raw
water intake. Then on Feb. 11, EPA
survey teams discovered that a really
massive "slug" of carbon tet had been
dumped into the river somewhere.
The results of analyses weren't
available until Feb. 18. Levels as high
as 340 ppb—cause for alarm, according to EPA—were detected.
Residents of Portsmouth and Ironton, Ohio, were advised to boil their
drinking water during the day or so
that the plume of the compound was
passing their water intakes. Then rain
and thaws caused the river to speed
up, and the carbon tet "passed Cincinnati before we knew what was
happening," according to an EPA
spokesman. Carbon tet concentration
in the water was still high as the
plume passed Louisville, but that city
was able to reduce the concentration
to a presumably safe level by treating
the water with powdered carbon.
Carbon tet is detected by purging
from the water with an inert gas onto
an adsorptive column, then desorbing
from the column into a gas chromatograph. Measurement is made
with a coulorimetric detector. From
the stream flow and the compound's
concentrations, EPA calculates that
about 70 tons had been dumped into
the river.
Suspicion centered on four chemical plants—FMC's and Diamond
Shamrock's on the Kanawha River,
near Charleston, W.Va., and PPG's
and Allied's on the Ohio River above
its confluence with the Kanawha.
PPG says it hasn't made carbon tet
since 1971. Allied says it makes it, but
finds no evidence to indicate abnormal discharges. Diamond Shamrock
makes only a few tons per day at its
Belle, W.Va., plant, although it makes
other chlorinated methanes at that
location. FMC, by far the largest
producer in the area, says it can't
confirm the spill at this time, but
can't deny it either. However, F M C
says that the loss of 70 tons certainly
would show up in its monitoring
processes—in fact, it would upset
production drastically—and it can
find nothing to suggest such a loss. It
is still investigating.
•
Cold hurt industry
less than expected
Assessments beginning to emerge on
the effects of the record cold weather
this winter show that most industries,
including the chemical industry, have
lost less production than most people
thought would be lost. The chemical
industry in particular had minimal
disruptions and unemployment, according to results of a telephone survey conducted by members of the
Department of Commerce's Office of
Business Research & Analysis.
The survey included 25 companies
that account for more than 50% of
chemical industry shipments, excluding ammonia. Only 1% of the
chemical work force was affected, the
Commerce survey found. Lost time
was brief, ranging between two and 10
days. Most lost time occurred at
plants where alternative fuels had to
be obtained in place of natural gas.
Widespread substitution of other
Source: Energy Research & Development Administration
Feb. 28, 1977C&EN
7