Beryllium's Public Relations Problem: Protecting Workers When There is No Safe Exposure Level

Abstract

news magazine in April 2000, Bill Richardson, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), acknowl edged that his agency collaborated with the beryllium industry to defeat a 1975 attempt by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to reduce workers' exposure to beryllium, a collaboration that was brought to public attention in a 1999 investiga tion by Toledo Blade reporter Sam Roe.1 Priority one was production of our nuclear weapons, Richardson stated. [The] last priority was the safety and health of the workers that build these weapons.2 The Secretary's declaration was remarkable; rarely do the most senior officials in government admit deception that resulted in death and disability of its own citizens. Yet, for those in the public health community, the Secretary's candid announcement was long overdue. Scores of workers employed in the production of nuclear weapons had been diagnosed with chronic beryllium disease (CBD), a progressive and irreversible inflammatory lung disease, and there was increasingly powerful evidence that CBD was associated with expo sure at levels below the permissible exposure limit in place at the time. In response to this evidence, the beryllium industry waged a concerted campaign to delay a more protective workplace exposure standard. Eventually, when the scientific evidence became so great that it was no longer credible to deny that work ers developed CBD at levels permitted by an outdated exposure limit, the beryllium industry responded with a new rationale to delay promulgation of a more pro tective standard.