Drug Treatment & Alcohol Rehab

Abstract

The story of Semic, a small town in Yugoslavia with a factory using PCBs in the manufacture of capacitors, resembles the environmental histories of scores of locales where the health and environmental effects of industry went unrecognized for an extended period. What has made Semic outstanding is the introduction of a positive treatment for affected workers. This report describes events surrounding utilization of the detoxification treatment developed by Hubbard. This procedure reduced both the body burdens and the symptoms of treated workers while no such improvements occurred in a control group of untreated workers. Our findings support the use of health screening and detoxification treatment when dealing with individuals affected by toxic exposures.

Introduction

Facing the environmental issues of the 21st century involves both prospective and retrospective approaches to environmental safety and protection. The lingering effects of past industrial practices must be ameliorated while monitoring the effects of current endeavors. At the core of these issues are the occupational and environmental impacts of activities essential to industry. The lessons of the Love Canal, Mexico City, Minamata, and Bhopal are only beginning to be appreciated. To these we add the story of Semic, a small town in Yugoslavia with a large factory manufacturing electrical products for export. The technological and institutional responses to occupational and environmental pollution problems often undergo the following sequence:

Throughout, attention to long-term economic viability and short-term remedial costs is accompanied by concerns over liability and regulation. This paper examines this sequence of events in the framework of the environmental pollution in Semic. We focus on detoxification of workers exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemicals. Our conclusions, which may be refined as a result of further analyses, are based on converging evidence from Semic and other industrially contaminated sites.

Background

The Republic of Slovenia lies in the northwest section of Yugoslavia, bordering Italy, Austria and Hungary. It has become, at a price, the economically strongest republic of the state and has contributed significantly to the 1987 national GNP per capita of $ 2,480. However, both costs and benefits have sometimes been borne inequitably. Predictably, environmental costs fall into this category.In 1961, Semic was a settlement located near a single water-well supplying some 500 inhabitants in the karstic southeast region of Slovenia. This agrarian area had seen a substantial pre- and post- World War 11 emigration to the United States. A political goal of economic self-sufficiency of the region was therefore adopted.

This began with the introduction of a factory producing small and large electrical capacitors, giving employment to approximately 1,300 workers. Within a decade, the settlement became a town of 2,000 inhabitants. Increasing immigration has resulted in a community of about 5,000 inhabitants with a semi-agrarian way of life. A distinguishing feature of this area is the presence of a half-nomadic Gypsy minority.

This began with the introduction of a factory producing small and large electrical capacitors, giving employment to approximately 1,300 workers. Within a decade, the settlement became a town of 2,000 inhabitants. Increasing immigration has resulted in a community of about 5,000 inhabitants with a semi-agrarian way of life. A distinguishing feature of this area is the presence of a half-nomadic Gypsy minority.

The capacitors produced at this factory had polychlorinated biphenyls of the Aroclor 1242 and 1254 types as the main impregnating substances. The PCBs were imported from West Germany, France and the United States. Other lipophilic (fat soluble) chemicals were also used in the production line, with a frequent introduction of new compounds. A complete listing of the chemicals utilized was not accessible but it is known that trichloroethylene (TCE), polychlorinated naphthalenes, epoxides, neoprene, and the chemicals necessary for metal spray-painting and gas welding were extensively utilized. Adverse health effects from chronic exposure to these chemicals are known to occur (Aviado, 1977; Bowman, 1977; Fawcett and Wood, 1982; Lin et. al., 1988; McCunney, 1988; Van Duuren et al., 1963).

The original technology and the devices utilized at the factory were maintained for some twenty years. Protective equipment, working suits, leather aprons, working boots, and gas masks - was seldom replaced. The available rubber gloves deteriorated within days and were eventually replaced by cotton products, hardly a suitable alternative. The discomfort and inconvenience experienced by workers attempting to meet the high production demands of this plant precluded a regular, full-time use of gas masks in the steaming halls where capacitors, held in large vats, were immersed in impregnating substances maintained at 120' C. Production demands also resulted in a casual separation of working and eating areas.

In addition to this direct occupational exposure, PCBs and other waste products were burned daily in open fires in the factory yard and used in the heating system of the factory. This resulted in exposure of both workers and residents of the community to the pyrolytic products of these chemicals (Buser, 1985; Kashimoto et al., 1981; Kimbrough, 1980; Weber and Schlatter, 1981). As in other cases (Fishbein aid Wolff, 1987; Knishkowy and Baker, 1986), familial exposure was the norm. Workers brought home their working suits soaked with oily chemicals to be laundered over the weekend. In addition, school children of the workers obtained regular daily meals at the factory mess for a symbolic fee.

Surplus PCB barrels and products were stored in nearby barns and some farmers used the oily substance as a covering for the floors of barns and hoghouses. Truckloads of empty barrels and rejected products unfit for recycling were dumped in naturally occurring basins. During twenty-four years some 70 tons of PCBs were dumped into these sites. At the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, gypsies added to the spillage of PCBs by disassembling the dumped products on-site to redeem the copper wiring. In sum, in Semic as elsewhere around the world, PCBs and other compounds were treated like water. Their effects, being cumulative, were observed only after time and concentration thresholds had been reached.

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