3/25/86
Doll wrote Gaffey about vinyl chloride epidemiology in the U.S., and professed no independent knowledge of any of the vinyl chloride literature except the TCA 1974 study. However, “some representatives of the chemical industry” asked him to review the evidence relating to vinyl chloride and the development of cancers in organs OTHER THAN THE LIVER in man and wanted Doll was requesting Gaffey’s help on obtaining the 1978 version of the EEH study (Dr. Doll did not know about eh 1986 EHA/Wong study)
In addition to asking for help getting cohort data other than the above mentioned and Waxweiller– 1976; Byren – 1976;Fox & Collier – 1977;; Buffler, et al – 1979;Ott, et al – 1975;Cooper – 1981;Von reine, et al – 1977;Nicholson, et al – 1975;Heldaas – 1984. That’s what dr. doll had collected somehow.
Doll then made the mistake of asking Dr. W.R. Gaffey to provide him with the identification of cohorts that were reported both individually AND in the general industry surveys in the U.S. because one problem that had cropped up immediately when Doll began to look at the literature was that some papers included data already reported by others. and that it was, therefore, very difficult to know HOW MUCH INDEPENDENT EVIDENCE THERE was”
5/1/86
On 5/1/86 Dr. Doll’s consulting agreement with Monsanto was increasing it from 1,000 to 1,500 dollars per day which Gaffey observed that considering the recent drop in the dollar was less generous than it appears to have been. Sir Richard and Lady Doll were to meet with Monsanto soon, with particular interest in the general topic of what Monsanto ought to be doing in the long run.
The $1,500 per day agreement ran from June 1, 1986 to May 31, 1987 (copy @ Doll 114, signed by George Roush, Jr., M.D., Monsanto director, Department Medicine and Environmental Health (formerly involved in the original Acroosteolysis investigation for Kettering, BFG, and then Monsanto in the mid 1960s.)
5/2/86
On 5/2/86 Dr, Gaffey advised Dr. Doll that the “Waxweiler cohort” was comprised two-thirds from the Goodrich Louisville plant, and that Louisville was also the major contributor to the original TCA study.
In contrast to his published “subsumption assumption” of several years later, at this time Dr. Doll did recognize clearly he was going to have some difficulty sorting out where the different studies overlapped, and did not yet assume that they all overlapped.
Monsanto’s Dr. Gaffey’s warned Dr. Doll to keep his your hand on his wallet when reading Waxweiller paper, claiming the tables show twice as many cases of liver and brain cancer than deaths than were are shown in the SMR tables for those causes and the authors aren’t as “serupulous” [scrupulous] as Gaffey thought they should have been in pointing this out.
Gaffey also explained to Dr. Doll that the EEH study was an expansion of the ‘74 TCA paper Gaffey also told Doll that his recollection was the 1978 expansion improved follow-up and that a group of exposed workers from Union Carbide, inadvertently left out of the study, were included.
Dr. Gaffey told Dr. Doll that the reason the forthcoming CMA update of the 1978 Equitable study was being pushed by Ted Torkelson was because he thought there were too few observations of lung and liver cancer to be trustworthy. Dr. Doll then was TOLD that the 1973 cohort would be updated and that “A report was expected late that year. (1986)
Doll responded to Gaffey’s letter on 7/11/86 and admitted that examples like the Waxweiller study showed that Doll would have some difficulty in sorting out where the different studies overlapped.
5/11/86
On May 5, 1986, Dr. Paddle (ICI) sent Dr. Doll a copy of a 5/11/86 letter referring to the EMAS VCM update along with Dr. Paddle’s 6/11/86 letter to Dr. Bennett, also with ICI. In the letter Paddle told Dr. Bennett and other ICI employees that Bob Jones (the EMAS epidemiologist) had assured Paddle, in private, that the study would not contain “any new, unpleasant messages.” Sue Braithwaite from ICI had done a PMR analysis of 597 ICI deaths included in the EMAS cohort was interested to note that the ICD categories that would reflect liver cancer (ICD 150-159) had a low PCMR. In contrast, ICD categories 190-199 had the highest PCMR and contained brain cancer (191).
7/11/86
Dr, Doll’s ongoing consulting agreement with Monsanto was extended/
In the course of the correspondence Dr. Doll told Dr. Gaffey about the rumor Bryan Bennett of ICI just passed on about the update of the CMA vinyl study - that the EEH study had been abandoned because financial support for it ceased. Doll presumed his information was later than the “news” of a possible update Gaffey had apparently relayed. Doll said he would be delighted to hear that what Bennet had told him was wrong. Though.
6/11/86
Bennett sent Doll a preliminary HSE report on the EMAS VCM update
Bennett asks whether Dr. Gaffey had answered Doll’s previous questions
7/7/86
Bennett wrote Doll in reply to Doll’s 6/19/86 letter, and claims that “there had been no update” of the 1978 EEH study “because the project was removed from the budget – and therefore not progressed – through lack of financial support.
Bennett also supplies Doll with a list of epidemiologic studies with the ones dealing with VCM marked with an “x”
7/19/86
Doll thanks Bennett for his 6/11/86 (Doll 80) letter and enclosed a copy of Doll’s letter to Gaffey asking (among other things, about a question raised in the first paragraph and specified in the second)
8/5/86
On August 5, 1986, EHA met with the Vinyl Panel and produced a DRAFT epidemiologic study that professed to confirm that VINYL CHLORIDE workers experienced significant mortality excesses in angiosarcomas (15 deaths), cancer of the liver, and biliary tract, and cancer of the brain and other areas in the central nervous system (SMR - 180), a notable improvement from the 203 SMR in the 1978-era studies.
8/8/86
As a result of the CMA Vinyl Panel meeting with EHA, EHA was to revise the draft report based on the comments that EHA had received from the Panel, and submit the final report by the end of September 1986.
9/6/86
On September 6, 1986, the VCRC participated in a conference call at the CMA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
9/8/86
On September 8, 1986, the CMA Vinyl Panel met with Environmental Health Associates (EHA) at EHA’s Office in Oakland, CA. [87]
9/10/86
On 9/10/86 II replied to Doll’s 9/2/86 letter and 9/10/86 phone call (that morning) about a proposed meeting on the vinyl chloride report. he meeting was to occur Friday, September 19 at 12:45 p.m.
ICI would visit Monsanto in St. Louis in two weeks (late April, early May, 1987). Gaffey had received a copy of the new paper from Doll and was told to keep it strictly confidential until the end of May, when HSE and IARC would be sent copies and the document could be referred to publicly.
9/23/86
ICI (Bennett) sent an article VC – A Cancer Case Study by Purchase, Stafford, and Paddle to Dr. Doll as well as Hazard Evaluation and Risk Assessment for VC by John T. Barr.
Dr. Doll had met with Dr. Bennett (ICI) September 19, 1986.
9/24/86
On 9/24/ 86 Dr. Doll wrote Dr. Paddle asking five questions about the American vinyl chloride studies. Doll told Bennett he needed to know which sets of data from the “other” American studies (besides the CMA cohort) were additional and how much overlap there was between the plants included study in these 5 specific five scientific papers.
On 10/9/86, Dr. Paddle replied to Doll’s original question about Waxweiler, Nicholson, Ott, Ed Monson being included in the 1978 EEH report Incredibly, even at this point in time Dr. Doll did not know and had not been told that an update of the CMA cohort had been in what for the lack of a better term will be called progress for over 7 years. He certainly was completely unaware that the 10 year update he would soon (although at the last moment) receive and rely on in his long overdue critical review. The identities of U.S. plants not addressed in this letter.
In reckless misrepresentations Bennett wrote Dr. Doll the next 11/12/86 and claimed there was all but complete overlap in the US studies.
10/9/86
ICU’s G. M. Paddle wrote Dr. Doll in response to questions Doll raised to ICI’s Dr. Bennett in his Doll’s 9/24/86 letter about (1) the need for updating from 1973 to 1979 as DR. Cooper recommended in his 1981 paper (the EHA six year update that the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers never did). Doll said there was no point in preparing his vinyl chloride review without such results (and the same thing was true of the old Fox & Collier study from the U.K. Clearly, as of this time Dr. Doll did not even know the Wong update (or any MCA update at all) ditto).
In the course of requesting a full copy of the 1978 EHA report, Dr. Doll had remarked that he hoped the1978 Paper was a bit more detailed than Clark Cooper’s summary in his 1981 published paper
Dr Doll then asked which American studies were additional to the CMA study (meaning the 1978 study, that he still had hadn’t read, but at least knew existed)
10/17/86
On October 17, 1986, EHA produced a final report, entitled “An Update of An Epidemiological Study of VINYL CHLORIDE Workers.”
This study also confirmed the relationship between occupational exposure to VINYL CHLORIDE and liver and biliary tract cancer as well as cancer of the brain and other central nervous system sites. In addition, the study also found significant mortality excess from emphysema.
On the other hand, the study did not find any relationship between occupational exposure to VINYL CHLORIDE and cancer of the respiratory system or lymphatic and hematopoietic cancer.
This paper was submitted to EPA, OSHA, NIEHS, CPSC, and FDA on behalf of the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers. It was submitted as a “for your information” (FYI) submission the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers frequently employed as a CYA (COVER YOUR BEHIND) maneuver when they were worried about TSCA 8(e) reporting obligations.
11/5/86
On November 5, 1986, Dr. Gaffey of Monsanto wrote to Sir Richard Doll in Oxford, England, enclosing a final report on the ten-year update of the cohort defined at the end of 1972, the VINYL CHLORIDE study by EHA dated October 17, 1986 and submitted to the government as an FYI submission.
The CMA Group were said to be quite willing for Dr. Doll to have the October 17, 1986 EHA study.
Dr. Gaffey told Dr. Doll that by submitting it to EPA, the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers had made it a public document, and that, therefore, their generosity with the EHA was understandable. Dr. Doll had previously mentioned a rumor that the completion of the MCA / CMA update had been canceled for a supposed “lack of funds.”
More recently, Dr. Gaffey explained, a so-called plaintiffs’ witness in one of Monsanto’s trials had said that Otto Wong, the senior author of this report, had been “fired” by CMA. Dr. Gaffey took this to mean that CMA’s contracts with EHA had been canceled, and Gaffey denied the rumor was true. Dr. Gaffey guessed that the rumors originated in the fact that CMA (including himself) had differed with Otto in their interpretation of the CMA benzene study. The CMA benzene study was also criticized by several of CMA’s outside reviewers because of its design, but Wong was not responsible for that, Gaffey admitted, since Wong had taken over the study after the design was fixed.
Dr. Gaffey told Dr. Doll the members of the benzene and VINYL CHLORIDE PANEL Dr. Gaffey had served on thought that Otto Wong was competent, diligent and honest. However, this was untrue and Gaffey knew that in the course of the VCRC’s most recent review of Wong’s report, Wong’s group had been criticized with unprecedented bitterness and contempt.
The 1986 paper Dr. Doll would go on to largely base his 1987 critical review of the literature on had been characterized as the work of clerks. In fact, Dr. Gaffey had himself responded, in detail, to each one of those criticisms since Dr. Gaffey had become Chairman of the CMA Vinyl Panel himself.
His Chairmanship of the CMA Vinyl Panel effectively allowed Dr. Gaffey to preside over the American vinyl industry’s administration of the ten-year update of the original cohorts previously assembled by the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers.
In the course of Dr. Gaffey’s previous employment by both the TCA and EEH, and most recently, Monsanto, Dr. Gaffey had himself been extensively involved in most, if not all, of the published and unpublished reports from TCA, EEH, and EHA that the report he was sending Dr. Doll was based upon. Dr. Doll was misled by both Dr. Bennett of ICI and Dr. Gaffey of Monsanto (and CMA) as to which American studies had been subsumed by which others.
11/12/86
On 11/12/86, Dr. Brian Bennett told Sir Richard Doll that all of the American plants that had been studies were subsumed in the 1978 study, but not Waxweiler. Bennet said nothing about any report from Wong, or about any update.
Also in contrast to the subsumption assumption that Dr. Doll would rely upon to excuse/explain his having excluded all the American studies besides the MCA/CMA studies from his so-called critical review of the worlds literature on vinyl chloride, on 11/12/86, Dr. Bennett (with whom Dr. Doll had recently written a paper on the ICI Angiosarcoma Registry) characterized the question of overlap in the American studies as “murky waters indeed.”
Dr. Paddle said speculating about the TCA cohort was “murky waters indeed! One really needed to know which plants from which companies were included in which studies, and, of course, the text did not make these available. It was the same in U.K., where it was no obvious that Duck, et al was a subset of Fox & Collier.”
Dr. Paddle was replying to Doll’s 9/24 questions posed to Bennett in which Doll had inquired specifically about the overlap in the composition of the American cohorts. Paddle correctly misinterpreted the misrepresentation made by the MCA group in their 1981 Published study (Cooper): Paddle’s understanding was that EEH extended the population in the original TCA study to include some Union Carbide plants.
The impression Paddle reported receiving at the time was that the extension of the CMA study had achieved blanket coverage of the American VCM/PVC industry. In fact, MCA and CMA had specifically not done and, on information and belief, specifically avoided doing so.
The CMA and MCA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers deliberately avoided obtaining maximum coverage many times: Unfortunately, the very idea that even data that was appreciated as significant and readily available for analysis was ever in fact used is ridiculous. As the 1980 EHA evaluation of the MCA/CMA database revealed, the MCA and CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers had avoided including the following type of workers from their studies: older workers, workers who had been hired longer, or for whom more time had past since they were first employed in an exposed job; the cohort selection process was known by EHA and the MCA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers to have systematically excluded retired workers, disabled workers, sick workers, and, in some plants, dead workers, specifically.
The CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers had concealed the foregoing short list of systematic biases built into the EHA database and other from many more scientists than Sir Richard Doll to, of course.
In connection with Dr. Doll’s “Critical review” article, Dr. Paddle advised Dr. Doll that he didn’t believe the EEH study was being updated At this point in time Doll does not know about Wong’s 86 paper that will be published in a few weeks (10/27/86).
Dr. Paddle sent Doll Paddle’s own copy of the 1978 EEH report; so Gaffey may not have been the direct source for the CMA paper furnished to Doll.
11/12/86
Doll had asked Dr. Bennett if there had been an update of the old MCA cohort, and Dr. Bennett, who had just returned from U.S., was able to provide much more than what Doll asked for. BFG (presumably, Dr. Dietz) had given Bennett a copy Wong’s “final” version of the report dated 10/27/86 - just weeks off the press.
The EHA (Wong) 1986 paper was furnished to Dr. Doll without telling him anything of what its American sponsors, himself included, really thought about the quality of the EHA work, preside over by Dr. Wong. Dr. Doll was under the misconception that the CMA update had been cancelled for a “lack of funds” and Dr. Gaffey referred disapprovingly to rumors that Dr. Wong had been “fired” by his sponsors. In fact there had been truly unprecedented scathing and personally insulting criticisms. For example, J.T. Barr from Air Products is a source quoted in the first footnote of Dr. Doll’s “Critical Review” of vinyl chloride epidemiology. Mr. JT Barr had characterized the 1986 Wong work product (that Dr. Doll relied upon so heavily in his Critical review” that the Wong/EHA report appeared to have been written by clerks.
But J.T. Barr knew many things about the MCA/CMA studies and the Wong study Doll would never dream, and many more he might not suspect.
ICI’s Dr. Bennett also promised to send an updated version of the British Fox & Collier Report, when received. Meanwhile, he was sending a draft.
Referring to Dr. Doll’s questions about the identity of the plants involved in the American MCA/CMA studies, Dr. Bennett attached what he described as a list of plants from the updated cohort for the follow-up to the Tabershaw-Gaffey study.
“ Subsumption” was the scientific method Dr. Doll’s used to dispose untidy epidemiologic studies that conflicted with the studies Doll had chosen to include in this” Critical Review.” However, the entire factual basis for such an important assumption appears to have been nothing more than second or third hand information from Bennett.
Bennett told Doll that the Ott (Dow) paper itself contained many employees were in the TCA cohort. Dr. Bennett told Dr. Doll he believed Dr. Buffler studied a Dow VCM plant and that the plant had been included in the TCA cohort. This seems like a pretty flimsy basis to assume it was in the TCA report. Nicholson studied Goodyear, Niagara Falls, Bennett said, and they were completely subsumed or “overlapped” by the EHA study. Bennet reported that Nicholson’s studies also studied BFG, Calvert City and Louisville, all of which were included by TCA [Nicholson and Monson]. “Chizze had involved exclusively PVC plants (its protocols specifically excluded plants in which both PVC fabrication and polymer production occurred, hence, no overlap with TCA) Bennett was unable to get a translation of the Von Reinl, Weber & Greiser (1977) mortality study from the Federal Republic enclosed a translation to the introduction of the book.
11/19/86
Doll wrote Dr. Bennett (ICI) , thanking him for all the enclosures to his November 12, letter and apologizing that Dr. Doll was too busy to really get down to work on vinyl chloride until at least November 12. As will be shown, Dr. Doll was completely finished with the study by 1/20/87 (but he did have help)
Doll seems to be referring to his misunderstanding (referenced in Gaff’s letter) that Dr. Wong had been fired (it didn’t say that here though) and “that the study had been stopped” [ this was, as it turns out, partly true, since the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers accused Dr. Wong of breach of contract when he published it over 10 years after it began in the late 1970sand claiming he had no right to publish it, in 1991.The Ross case was front and center; the Chief medical officers for the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers then currently involved in alleged vinyl chloride brain cancer case, Dow Chemical and Vista Chemical, Drs. Hinderer and Dr. Jack Drumright.
Vista Chemical had purchased assets from Conoco Chemicals in the early 1980s (as part of an MBO that was part of du Pont’s purchase of Conoco, the old Continental Oil Company)
Dr. Doll admitted that clearly, he would HAVE TO ASSUME that pretty well ALL THE DATA previously reported from America (other than that reported by Chiazze) was included in the Tabershaw update.
11/19/86
On 5/86 Dr. Doll wrote W.R. Gaffey, Monsanto’s epidemiology director, thanking him for the ENSR report submitted to OSHA in 1986.
Doll had not started the report yet but claimed that he intended to bring an unpublished American study, an unpublished British study, and two reports from Italy and Scandinavia “together” in six weeks.
Doll said he was glad to have Gaffey’s explanation of the rumors about the abandonment of the CMA update study (i.e., any update of the TCA cohort defined at the beginning of 1973).
This was a clear reference to a dispute between Otto Wong and the sponsors over the poor quality of the final report submitted to OSHA in 1986. There had never been any published attempt to update the cohort in the TCA-study defined on the first day of 1973, and Dr. Doll had heard the CMA had abandoned the TCA cohort entirely; Doll was reported by Gaffey to have said that he had thought the author of the study had been fired by CMA or something of that sort..
Dr. Gaffey wrote Dr. Doll enclosing the 1986 EHA study.
Dr Gaffey also responded to Dr. Doll’s reported statements to the effect that he had heard that the update of the TCA cohort that began in 1979 was cancelled for “lack of funds.”
Gaffey further relayed that a plaintiff’s witness in one of Monsanto’s trials said that Wong had been “fired” by CMA, which Gaffey took to mean EHA’s contracts had been cancelled by CMA.
Gaffey guessed that the rumor “originated in the fact that CMA (including Gaffey) differed with Otto in some of his interpretations of the result of the CMA benzene study. (Yes, one man’s too many cancers in workers is another man’s too few cancers in the control group)
Gaffey acknowledged valid criticisms of Wong’s study design, but spares Wong responsibility for the study design since Wong was said to have taken over the study AFTER the design was fixed.
Gaffey said he brought all of this about Wong up because the assorted rumors tended to cloud Wong’s reputation and that of his employers. Gaffey went on to cite the Mark Twain statement about how fast a lie travels while the truth was getting its boots on.
January 1987
Dr. Doll, who had first learned of the existence of the 1986 EHA / Wong publication only weeks before substantially completing the paper, in early 1987 or late 1986.
Dr. Gaffey provided Dr. Doll with the 1986 EHA paper by Wong, in late, 1986. This was the same paper Doll would rely upon so heavily in his 1987 paper, which the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers claimed it was a breach of contract for Otto Wong to publish in 1991.
1/6/87
Dr. Doll told Dr. Jones on 1/6/87 that the report he had submitted to the CMA was a personal report to the association, not one which he intended publishing.
1/20/87
Doll sent his draft report to Bennett (ICI, Ltd.) not when it was due in April, 1987 but in the middle of January; 3 months before it was due. Dr. Doll was headed for Australia and didn’t have time to spend any more time on the project before mid April. However, Doll said his report was complete, apart from such additional information from articles that he have been unable to find (Specifically Masuda). Doll said he would welcome any criticisms and hoped the early submission of his final report might give the Americans plenty of time.
Here, and throughout his correspondence with Dr. Bennett (and in his deposition in the Dendinger case) Dr. Doll referred to “the Americans” or “CMA,” as sponsoring his studies, however, ICI, and presumably funds from other companies like Norsk Hydro, BFG, and other companies so diverse that Dr. Bennett said the costs would be apportioned based on “world tonnage.” t
2/1/87
Bennett wrote all recipients of ICI’s ASL register (enclosing the February 1987 version. Bennett disclosed discussions of vinyl chloride C clustering and supposedly were just perplexed why some particular plants which had been manufacturing VCM/PVC pre-1962 had never had a (reported) case of ASL. Bennett and Tamburro express the malicious hypothesis that perhaps “for ASL to develop, certain circumstances are required and that a co-factor might be needed.
All of Dr. Bennett’s “colleagues” receiving the angiosarcoma registry are asked if they would be prepared to help in identifying such a factor.
3/1/87
On or about March 1, 1987, the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers received constructive notice of a connective tissue disorder similar to vinyl chloride disease reported in a patient exposed to perchlorethylene (a commonly used chlorinated organic solvent with a structural similarity to that of VCM).
4/3/87
ICI provided Doll with information on ambient levels of VCM found near U.K. manufacturing facilities.
4/13/87
Sir Richard Doll presented to his sponsors a draft of his critical review of the previous epidemiologic studies conducted by the American vinyl industry, entitled “Effects of Exposure to VINYL CHLORIDE: An Assessment of the Evidence.”
The combined data used in the Doll study showed small excesses in the mortality from cancers of the brain and of the lymphatic and haematopoietic systems; that the excesses were not “statistically significant,” and that there was nothing to suggest that they were occupational in origin.”
Although, referring to Dr. Maltoni’s work, Dr. Doll admitted that there was some evidence that brain tumors could be produced in rats, Dr. Doll claimed there was little evidence, either to confirm or refute, the suggestion that VC might cause melanoma or cancers of the thyroid, brain, and lymphatic and haematopoietic systems.
Conceding that prior studies had demonstrated the occurrence of lymphomas and brain cancers in VINYL CHLORIDE workers more often than might be expected from national mortality rates, Doll included the excesses observed in the combined data from the four principal studies he chose to include in his studies. (The four studies included in Dr. Doll’s analysis were: an Italian study of 2 large plants and a Canadian Study ]Theriault[, as well as a still unpublished, 1991 update of a large British cohort and, most especially, the unpublished 1986 EHA study.)
Combined the way they were, Dr. Doll claimed the increases in the number of brain cancer cases in the 4 studies he chose to analyze were not large, but were small, not statistically significant and not proven related to VINYL CHLORIDE exposure.
Doll limited the data in his analysis to that reported from the 4 studies he chose for reasons including his reliance on unpublished, false, and misleading information he was provided with in bad faith (and with knowledge of its falsity, or at least in reckless disregard for its truth) from BFG’s Dr. Dietz, and Monsanto’s Dr. Gaffey.
Dr. Doll reported that the small excess of brain cancers were said to be particularly difficult to evaluate since mortality rates from this disease had changed rapidly over time, and that improved diagnostic procedures and the suspicion of an occupational hazard since 1975 could have influenced the findings. Although Doll had found that there might be a small risk of lung cancer, the balance of the evidence, he reported, did not support the idea that VINYL CHLORIDE had ever caused cancer in any other human organ, conceding, only, that it was impossible to state categorically that it had not.
5/3/87
Doll wrote Bennett (ICI) asking that the check be made payable to Green College, and that he looked forward to a future meeting and to preparing with Bennett a future note on the angiosarcoma register in a year or two’s time.
Dr. Doll did not prepare a further note on the angiosarcoma registry in a year or two, or ever - The questions raised by Dr. ten Berge about discrepancies between the angiosarcoma registry and (as Dr. Stokinger said about the 1962 revision the TLV to 50 ppm and then not publishing it, etc.), there the matter lay.
Dr. Doll has recently testified some such as yet unidentified evidence of an honest explanation for the discrepancy exists. Notwithstanding this, based upon currently available evidence (Dr. Doll did not explain specifically how the discrepancies were resolved), the huge and one would think still disturbing discrepancies between the ICI Angiosarcoma Registry’s US Cases and Table 17 of the 1986 (Wong) report have never been resolved. No explanation for why the so called “Wong cases” ](angiosarcoma cases) aren’t on the ICI list of U.S. cases and why U.S. cases on the ICI list somehow didn’t make their way into the 1986 EHA cohort has ever been forthcoming. And there is no reasonable explanation for the discrepancies that doesn’t imply sort of serious reporting problems going on in the vinyl industry, including misconduct.,
5/6/87
Dr. Doll was to meet with Bryan Bennett on March 10 to discuss the vinyl chloride “survey”, and one or two points, for Bennett’s own information, he wanted to discuss and clarify while running through the report with Dr. Doll at the meeting.
Bennett referred to the report as not having yet been finalized. After it was, Bennett was to circulate copies to the companies who have agreed to contribute financially to the project.
5/13/87
– Doll enclosed and addendum to his paper in a letter to Bennett (ICI), as well as a few other minor changes.
5/17/87
– Bennett expected Doll’s report in April, 1987, when he could send it to the various contributors to the project. As agreed, the group waited a month before sending it to a RESTRICTED circulation.
6/4/87
Doll modified his report responding to Bennett’s comments at their March 10 meeting.
8/6/87
On August 6, 1987, the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers were provided detailed coverage of reported miscarriages in a small community near Baton Rouge, LA that has long been heavily populated with plants using and producing VINYL CHLORIDE.
8/25/87
Prior to August 25, 1987, the fixed-point monitoring-based alarm system at the loading racks for PPG’s facility near Lake Charles, LA, was ringing between 35 and 50 times a day.
During the same period of time, Vista destroyed records from the fixed-point monitoring conducted at its VCM plant near Lake Charles, LA because of concern about the monitoring result’s potential value to plaintiffs in future personal injury litigation and because they might be subject to request under the recently adopted federal Right to Know legislation.
The fixed-point monitoring data contradicted phony personnel monitoring the plant had collected for regulated, and deregulated, areas of Vista’s VCM plant that were based upon charcoal’s inefficient adsorption of vinyl chloride for their accuracy.
8/26/87
Dr. Doll submitted his final report on his critical review of the vinyl chloride literature on 8.26.87.
8/27/87 (Doll 66)
ICI wrote Doll that he was still waiting the final contribution of 3,000 pounds from Dow, but had sent him 12,000 pound that day, an embarrassing situation for Bennett , who explained that “as a matter of interest with large companies such as Dow, the mechanics of raising monies in the settlements of accounts can take a very long time.”
Dr. Bennett went on to apologize profusely that ICI’s own Geoff Paddle had dared write Dr. Doll about his comparison of Doll’s report with the ECETOC draft vinyl chloride report Paddle was working on. Dr. Bennett explained that Dr. Paddles transmission had been done totally outside his knowledge, and that, in fact, Dr. Bennett have never even been involved in ECETOC, this being the domain of Geoff Paddle at ICI. Bennett obsequiously apologized for “any concern this man may have caused” Doll. The report didn’t accord with the “angiosarcoma only” theory.
9/3/87
Doll replied that (1) “Geoff Paddle’s letter did not embarrass him in any way,” and enclosed his reply to Paddle concerning the letter Bennett was falling all over himself apologizing for, like it Paddle’s letter had been impertinent to pass on scientific information to Doll.
Doll also explained that he knew how difficult it could be sometimes to get money from big companies like the CMA-coordinated vinyl manufacturers
Dr. Doll also said he was looking forward to seeing how next year’s angiosarcoma data would accord with Doll and Paddle’s predictions about the number of cases of angiosarcoma of the liver to be expected – remarking that so far we have not been doing too badly., which would not have been surprising if Doll knew that ICI maintained low dose angiosarco9ma cases in a careful confidential file separate from the angiosarcoma registry that is published.
The angiosarcoma registry paper by Doll was not updated in five years as promised, although it was promised at the conclusion of the 1986 published report and would, in any event, have been an excellent opportunity to disclose publicly the “Dr. ten Berge discrepancy,” if that had been anyone’s inclination.
10/20/87
Dr. Paddle enclosed Dr. ten Berge’s 9/10/87 letter on the discrepancy between the lists contained in the TCA study and the ASL registry and noted that ten Berge’s analysis of the two lists not being in agreement, as Leading S TO THE CONCLUSION THAT VCM WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR LIVER CANCERS OTHER THAN ASL.
(e.g., 17 of the 37 liver cancers in the EHA study weren’t on the ICI ASL registry. and, of the 29 American ASL registry cases, 9 were not in the TCA cohort.)
12/22/87
Dr. Doll asked ICI and the Americans whether “the missing registry cases came from companies that did not participate in the EHA study (which might account for registry numbers 12) though it seems unlikely that Firestone didn’t. He also asks whether Great American (case 20) and Monsanto (case 32). Of the ones he mentions, only Monsanto Springfield was in the study.
December 1987
The Vinyl Institute’s (a division of the SPI, or “VI”) published and subsequently widely disseminated an article, entitled “Potential Effects of VINYL CHLORIDE on Human Offspring.”
The VI Article claimed that although early, or preliminary, studies of offspring by some investigators had suggested that VCM causes birth defects and miscarriages, peer review and subsequent research had somehow demonstrated there was no basis for such fears.
12/23/87
On or about December 23, 1987, the VI HSEC (Gottesman) disseminated copies of a purported “white paper,” entitled “Potential Effects Of Vinyl chloride On Human Offspring).
This position paper was created through the contributions of Dr. Robert Henderer from BFG and Dr. Paul Gurba of Occidental Chemical Company in specific response to several newspaper articles that had recently appeared in Louisiana newspapers, containing the allegation that ambient (environmental) vinyl chloride emissions from VCM and PVC plants in the Baton Rouge area, had led to adverse reproductive effects in humans living in the vicinity of those plants.
The VI Coordinated Defendants on the VI Executive Board, the VI HSEC, and the VI Technical/Medical/Subcommittee, as well as all VI Committee Chairmen were furnished copies for use in responding to media inquiries, but with instructions not to use the material unless specifically asked.