OT:[occ-env-med-l] WashPost: CA considers banning diacetyl / popcorn flavoring

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[occ-env-med-l] WashPost: CA considers banning diacetyl / popcorn

flavoring

Flavoring Suspected in Illness

Calif. Considers Banning Chemical Used in Microwave Popcorn

By Sonya Geis

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, May 7, 2007; Page A03

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-

dyn/content/article/2007/05/06/AR2007050601089.html

[Please visit the original website to view the whole article. - Mod.]

SOUTH GATE, Calif. -- She was once in constant motion; her co-workers

compared her to a roadrunner because of the way she darted around the

workplace. But now Irma Ortiz sits at the edge of her couch, too

winded to sweep her patio or walk her son to school without resting.

She is slowly suffocating.

Ortiz, 44, is among a group of California food-flavoring workers

recently diagnosed with bronchiolitis obliterans, a rare and

life-threatening form of fixed obstructive lung disease. Also known

as

popcorn workers lung, because it has turned up in workers at

microwave-popcorn factories, the disease destroys the lungs. A

transplant is the only cure.

Since 2001, academic studies have shown links between the disease and

a chemical used in artificial butter flavor called diacetyl.

Flavoring

manufacturers have paid out more than $100 million as a result of

lawsuits by people sick with popcorn workers lung over the past five

years. One death from the disease has been confirmed.

But no federal laws regulate the chemical's use. The Occupational

Safety and Health Administration is still deciding what standards to

set for workers who handle it. In late April, the head of OSHA,

Assistant Secretary of Labor Edwin G. Foulke Jr., testified before

Congress that the agency will begin inspecting microwave-popcorn

factories this month.

While critics charge that OSHA has stalled, California is moving

ahead. Here, state Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D) has introduced a

bill to ban the use of diacetyl.

Since the first California case of popcorn workers lung was diagnosed

just over two years ago, state health officials have screened workers

at each of the state's 29 food-flavoring plants, looking for

breathing

trouble. The screenings lay the groundwork for state regulation of

diacetyl and provide the first comprehensive data on flavoring

workers

outside popcorn plants.

So far, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or

Cal/OSHA, has found eight flavoring workers with fixed obstructive

lung disease, most of those with bronchiolitis obliterans. Twenty-two

more have below-normal lung capacity, which may be the beginning of

the disease.

" They're finding it there because they're looking there, " said

s of the department of environmental and occupational health

at

Washington University. s, assistant secretary of energy

in the Clinton administration, accuses OSHA of " regulatory

paralysis. "

" It's not some carcinogen where you get cancer 30 years from now or

something. The people are dying right in front of you, " s

said.

" You can't wait until you have all the evidence. You have to regulate

it. "

Even less is known about the health effects of eating diacetyl in

butter-flavored popcorn, or breathing the fumes after the bag is

microwaved. The Environmental Protection Agency has studied the fumes

but is waiting for the industry to review the study before releasing

it. The Food and Drug Administration has diacetyl on its list of

substances " generally recognized as safe " but has not studied it.

California does not regulate the chemical's use, either. But, " in

general, these employers know they have a problem. They're in a mode

now where they're saying, 'Tell us what to do,' " said Len Walsh,

acting director of Cal/OSHA. Using the chemical in closed containers

instead of mixing it in the open air would help, Walsh said.

Ortiz said she wore a disposable face mask when she mixed flavors

during the eight years she worked at Carmi Flavor and Fragrance Co.

in

Commerce, Calif. In recent years, it became impossible for her to

wear

the mask because she coughed continually at the plant and her nose

often ran, Ortiz said.