Documents DeMatteo, Robert 3 results

"Despite concern about the harmful effects of substances contained in various plastic consumer products, little attention has focused on the more heavily exposed women working in the plastics industry. Through a review of the toxicology, industrial hygiene, and epidemiology literatures in conjunction with qualitative research, this article explores occupational exposures in producing plastics and health risks to workers, particularly women, who make up a large part of the workforce. The review demonstrates that workers are exposed to chemicals that have been identified as mammary carcinogens and endocrine disrupting chemicals, and that the work environment is heavily contaminated with dust and fumes. Consequently, plastics workers have a body burden that far exceeds that found in the general public. The nature of these exposures in the plastics industry places women at disproportionate risk, underlining the importance of gender. Measures for eliminating these exposures and the need for regulatory action are discussed."

"Occupational disease recognition is often hampered by lack of historical exposure data. This paper describes research documenting major chemical exposures of Canadian General Electric workers in a plant in Peterborough between 1945 and 2000. Workers' experiences with diseases over forty years, and their frustration with the continual denial that these were work-related, drove this study. Researchers used qualitative methods, participatory action research, hazard mapping, and risk assessment. A report that incorporates this study's findings documents extremely toxic exposures that placed Canadian General Electric workers at a disproportionate risk of occupational diseases. Since the report's release, the Ontario Workplace Safety and Insurance Board reconsidered 233 previously denied claims in the light of “new evidence” and overturned one half of those it reviewed. The retrospective exposure profile methods used in this study may serve as a useful model for workers and their organization when plants close."

"The article “Workers' Fight for Justice: A retrospective exposure profile study of the GE factory in Peterborough, Ontario,” by Robert DeMatteo and Dale DeMatteo in this issue of New Solutions discusses the illness legacy among workers engaged in various production processes at the factory. We have the privilege of presenting a set of historical photographs of the factory. These images illustrate the intersection of the industrial and chemical revolutions that took place in twentieth century industrial production. The images track CGE's development over the years—from building trolleys in the last years of the nineteenth century, to war production for two world wars, to building giant hydroelectric turbines, and the first peace time refrigerator to come off CGE productions lines in the mid-1940s. What we don't see in these images are the tragic consequences of the toxic legacy CGE has left for the communities of its former employees as it closes its doors."