mek 1958

Remember MEK, the solvent we used during our canco careers. Yhe danger of chemical exposure were known about the chemical since the mid 50s.

This flic was not shown at union hall nor did the company go into detail the healthcare dangers, OSHA law or not, the dangers of MEK solvent. OSHA was not the law in 1958 by the way.

MEK is banned from use in many states in industrial applications. One of the reasons the 083 plant stayed in operation is that Missouri did not ban the use of MEK. The company did use "substitutes".

How safe the substitutes? Who knows and alas, none care it seems? OSHA was stripped of a lot of authority from Regan times to now. There does not seem to be a massive push to restore OSHA's authority in these matters.

The USW has an active and excellent safety department. I urge those workers to check with safety and health committee and "Read" the material safety data sheets. Make a copy if you are able and keep forever. Side effects and long term effects are not followed by anyone.

By the way, the cancer rate among some of our coworkers was greater than the national average. Workplace? who knows?

seems many with the body count to rise before action taken. Alas, it does the dead little benefit.
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from original poster on youtube:

Disorders of the nervous system that result from toxic exposures encountered in the workplace have been noted throughout recorded history. More than 750 chemicals have been found to be potentially neurotoxic. In the first century A.D., Pliny discovered palsy in workers exposed to lead dust. Delpech observed bizarre psychoses among French workers who manufactured rubber products in small cottage industries during the 1800s and recognized that they were caused by carbon disulfide. During the 1960s and early 1970s, peripheral neuropathy was observed in Japanese workers exposed to acrylamide despite prior identification of its neurotoxicity in animals. Since 1970, at least three significant outbreaks of neurotoxicity have occurred as a result of exposure to
Chemicals. Despite improved industrial hygiene practices and the development of animal models for assessing some neurotoxic diseases, it is obvious that workers continue to serve as the "sentinel" indicator of neurotoxic disorders. For more, go to the NIOSH report: A Proposed National Strategy For the Prevention of Neurotoxic Disorders http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/89-134/... . This is clipped from the 1958 film, Gateways to the Mind, made for AT&T by the Warner Brothers Studio. The entire film is available at the Internet Archives

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjkBta_lp1A

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full movie mentioned in two parts:


---------part two--