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Flint Journal, The (includes 8 weekly titles)(MI) - Flint Journal, The (MI) - May 7, 2006
Scientists unsure why metalworking fluids so risky
Author: Ken Palmer; kpalmer@flintjournal.com * 810.766.6313
Edition: THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION - Section: LOCAL NEWS - Page: A02 - Dateline: FLINT
Index Terms: - Flint area general news - FNEW - local news - localnewsHEALTH & MEDICINE
Article Text:
Metalworking fluids have been linked to skin problems, cancer and such breathing disorders as hypersensitivity pneumonitis, or HP, which causes scarring in the lungs.
The fluids, widely used to cool and lubricate machines and cutting tools, were blamed for a rash of illnesses at General Motors' former V-8 engine plant on Van Slyke Road in Flint during the early to mid-1990s.
Experts are unsure exactly what in the fluids causes people to react.
But attorney Dale E. Bock, who sued GM and a company supplier on behalf of his late father and other plant workers who became sick, said there are three possibilities: the chemicals themselves, microbes that live in the fluids or the biocides added to kill those organisms.
A top official at Cincinnati Milacron, the company that supplied the fluids and monitored their use at the engine plant, testified that he discovered a biomass of living organisms in an area 60 feet long, 8 feet thick and 12 feet across in the fluid reservoir at the plant, Bock said.
Bock's father and other workers at the V-8 plant were diagnosed with HP, in which the lungs become sensitized to mold, fungus or other substances and become inflamed every time they are re-exposed.
"You could start to feel it when you got in the parking lot," said Gary Howard, who worked 27 years in the plant and was part of the lawsuit. "When you got inside, your lips would start swelling up."
Some workers developed skin lesions, diabetes and cancer, Bock said.
The litigation did not include workers with cancer because there wasn't enough proof the illnesses were caused by exposure to metalworking fluids, Bock said.
- Ken Palmer
Caption:
Howard
Copyright 2006 The Flint Journal. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.
Record Number: 0413844881
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