Toxic Exposures: Vinyl Chloride

Toxic Exposure to Vinyl Chloride

Vinyl chloride is a dangerous chemical used in making polyvinyl chloride, or PVC products.

Vinyl chloride was also used as a propellant in aerosol cans throughout the late 1950s and 1960s. Several PVC manufacturing plants are located in the Houston and Lake Charles, Louisiana, area.

A known human carcinogen, vinyl chloride can cause liver cancer, brain cancer and angiosarcoma, a malignant tumor of the blood vessels in the liver.

If you have been diagnosed with angiosarcoma of the liver, it is almost certain that it was caused by exposure to vinyl chloride or PVC products.

Diseases associated with exposure to vinyl chloride often do not appear until more than 20 years after the exposure to the toxic chemical occurred.

Employees in the following trades have the highest risk of exposure to vinyl chloride:

• Vinyl Chloride monomer rail car and ship loaders
• Fabricators of PVC
• Shower Curtain Makers
• Plastics manufacturing
• Resins manufacturing
• Rubber manufacturing
• Beauticians (Vinyl chloride was used as a propellant in hair spray until 1974)
  
  

Contact us for more information about toxic exposure to Vinyl Chloride.