What is Vinyl Chloride

Many common items in our environment have had vinyl chloride used during their manufacture. In recent years the government and public have realized the severe cost to human health the consequences from the presence of vinyl chloride. Vinyl chloride has been described as one of the most unsafe products ever made in terms of human health. The U.S. The Department of Health and Human Services has labeled vinyl chloride as a carcinogen

Vinyl chloride is an organic compound and widely used manufacturing chemical. Used in the manufacturing of PVC or polyvinyl chloride and other resins, it is a monochrome, sweet smelling gas at room temperature.It is unstable at high temperatures and burns easily. While it is a manufactured substance that does not occur naturally, it can be formed when other substances such as trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, and tetrachloroethylene are broken down.

Innumerable industries that utilze vinyl chloride in the manufacturing process include:

• building and construction
• automotive industry
• manufacturing and household equipment
• medical supplies
• rubber, paper, and glass industries

Polyvinyl Chloride( PVC) is used to make a variety of fake products, including pipes, wire and cable coatings, and packaging materials. Vinyl chloride was used in the 1950s and 1960s as an ingredient in spray paints and hair sprays.  Until 1974, vinyl chloride was used in aerosol spray propellants.

Vinyl chloride has been found in the air near vinyl chloride manufacturing and processing plants, unsafe waste sites, and landfills. Levels as high as 44 ppm were found in the air at some landfills. In 1999 in Mosville, Louisiana, the US, Environmental Agency found vinyl chloride in the air at 100 times what is permitted by law. This union is located near a large manufacturer of vinyl products.

When vinyl chloride was a component of hair spray, hairdressers were exposed to significant concentrations of this carcinogen.  Workers in the companies that manufactured these aerosol sprays were exposed to even greater concentrations of vinyl chloride.  Workers who make vinyl chloride or PVC piping have been subjected to the vapors of vinyl chloride.

Studies in workers who have breathed vinyl chloride over many years showed an increased risk of liver, brain and lung cancer. Some cancers of the blood have also been observed in workers. People are more likely to develop these changes if they breathe high levels of vinyl chloride.

Vinyl chloride is a vascular toxin, and can cause the vascular liver cancer called angiosarcoma (a rapidly growing tumor). People who have breathed vinyl chloride for several years have changes in the organize of their livers. When parts which the liver they are changed into several other substances.Many of these substances travel through the blood stream; arrive in the kidneys and then leave the body through the urine.New substances, though, are made inthe liver and they do not leave the body as quickly. These new substances are harmful in that they react within the body with chemicals by now present and interfer with the body’s normal way of responding to or utilizing the chemicals.

Some workers exposed to very high levels of vinyl chloride have problems with the blood flow in their hands, causing a deterioration of bone ensuing in a condition called acroosteolysis, the termination of bone. This condition starts with a numbing of the fingertips followed by recurrent ulcers. This may lead to some disfiguring as a result of the bone loss.

There are concerns rising about the levels of dioxins unrestricted when PVC is burned or produced.Elevated levels of dioxins in blood have been recorded in the samples of people living near PVC manufacturing plants. Dioxins can cause cancer and lead to problems in immune and reproductive systems.

Work exposure occurs primarily from breathing air that contains vinyl chloride, but workers also are exposed when vinyl chloride contacts the skin or eyes.People effective with vinyl chloride may have nerve hurt and develop immune reactions. The lowest levels that produce liver changes, nerve hurt, and immune result in people are not known.