Fatal Disease From Flavoring Raises Flags

Dr. David Egilman, left, an expert on occupational lung disease from Brown University, explains that the plastic container for butter flavoring does not bear any warning labels, in this Tuesday, March 2, 2004, file photo taken in Joplin, Mo. 30 people suffering from various respiratory illnesses sued New York-based International Flavors and Fragrances Inc. and its subsidiary, Virginia-based Bush Boake Allen Inc. (AP Photo/Pool, T. Rob Brown) (T. Rob Brown - AP)

BALTIMORE -- A potentially fatal lung disease linked to chemicals used in food flavorings poses a growing health risk, according to government scientists who are questioning the food industry's willingness to protect its workers.

Bronchiolitis obliterans first emerged as a threat within the food industry in 2000, when the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health was called to a southwest Missouri popcorn plant to investigate lung illnesses among workers.

Investigators subsequently found the disease among popcorn workers throughout the Midwest. They linked it to diacetyl, a substance that is found naturally in many foods but which also is artificially produced and widely used as a less expensive way to enhance flavor or impart the taste of butter.

NIOSH has linked exposure to diacetyl and butter flavoring to lung disease that sickened nearly 200 workers at popcorn plants and killed at least three.

"Now we've got cases of bronchiolitis obliterans among workers in other plants that use flavorings and in plants that make the flavorings," said Dr. Kathleen Kreiss, chief of the field studies branch of NIOSH's division of respiratory disease studies.

Bronchiolitis obliterans causes inflammation and obstruction of the small airways in the lung by rapid thickening or scarring. The irreversible condition is progressive and often fatal without a lung transplant.

Recent cases that NIOSH scientists have learned about include a man who worked at a small Baltimore-area flavoring company, a man who worked at a North Carolina potato chip plant, and an employee at a Chicago candy maker, and workers at a Cincinnati flavoring plant.

"We need to get into some of these plants because we don't have confidence that the flavoring industry has taken steps to actually prevent this disease, and we need to determine how widespread the exposure may be," Kreiss told The (Baltimore) Sun.

But while scientists at NIOSH and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration want to intensify investigations, agency leaders say they don't plan to act because they believe enough is being done now.

"OSHA advises its inspectors that workers may be at risk of overexposure to vapors of artificial flavorings in a variety of food processing work sites," said Al Belsky, a Labor Department spokesman.

"There is nothing to indicate that additional regulations are needed," Belsky added.

David Michaels, an epidemiologist at George Washington University's School of Public Health who examined OSHA's handling of the popcorn workers' sickness, called its inaction "criminal."