Sunday, 9 May 1999Brush has known risks of beryllium for decades
By Enric Volante and Rhonda Bodfield Sander
Imagine you sell a product so potentially deadly it terrifies some of your customers and threatens your profits. Brush Wellman Inc. struggled with that for decades - long before it opened a plant in Tucson. Consider 1953: United States Steel Corp. told Brush it didn't want to use the metal as a coating on steel because it might cost too much to protect workers. A year later Brush complained to a U.S. scientist because he had called the metal ``lethal.'' The letter stated that customers ``have been so terrified by what they believe to be health problems'' that they won't use the metal. Finished beryllium products - ranging from car-ignition parts to wireless phone components - don't pose a threat. But when workers machine or sand the metal, they may inhale toxic dust or fumes.
In 1983, Brush officials traveled to Japan to meet with a researcher who had warned for 11 years that factory workers were getting sick from breathing beryllium dust at levels below the safety limit shared by Japan and the United States. Brush officials noted that ``fear of beryllium toxicity is an impediment to growth,'' a company outline of the meeting shows. They stressed the research could hurt the market for beryllium and might cause regulators to implement arbitrary, unnecessary and costly rules. Few learned of the Japanese study, but potential customers kept balking. Among them: * NASA cited health hazards when it rejected the company's request to test beryllium for space shuttle brakes in 1975. * Volkswagen banned the metal a year later because labor unions were worried about it. * IBM General Technology and Motorola had safety concerns in 1982 and 1983. By 1986, Brush officials were urging their company president to fly to Scandinavia to head off a proposed beryllium ban. As the Cold War waned in the late 1980s, even the U.S. Defense Department - a longtime Brush booster - started looking for safer substances. By 1991, the Ohio-based company decided to combat the negative perceptions with its own public relations campaign. It published a book, distributed it to medical libraries and started giving university seminars. Brush executives had good reason to be concerned. They acknowledged others often referred to beryllium as ``the most deadly poison known to man.'' And new, competing substances made it ``difficult for environmentally responsive end users to look the other way (in terms of toxicity),'' a 1991 memo states. Nevertheless, the beryllium market remains strong, even though defense work is now only 5 percent of sales. Beryllium is now being used in air bag devices, anti-lock brake devices, medical laser components and medical diagnostic equipment. Tucson's role in Brush's future isn't likely to end soon. Company Vice President Hugh Hanes said the beryllium-oxide business in Tucson will probably shrink over time as other materials become available, but he said it will remain essential in small niche markets. Sales unexpectedly dipped 5 percent last year to $409 million after five years of growth. Brush executives blamed lower metal prices, auto industry strikes and Asia's poor economy. Find out more about beryllium, and visit the Beryllium Support Group Web site to learn more about the disease. |
