The Beryllium Thread

[Simplex3]

I'm putting this in here so that it won't hang around the top of the lounge while I cut and paste information in to post after post.

This is part of my ongoing offseaon attempt to get us ranked on the first page of some search engine(s) when nerds search for "beryllium".

Before you PM me with "Why?", the answer is simply that I am sitting around reading log files at work and cutting and pasting into this thread requires absolutely NO mental stress.

[Simplex3]

Several properties account for beryllium metal's considerable value in modern industry. It has a very high stiffness to weight ratio and low density and it has the strength of steel without steel's weight. It also has a low coefficient of thermal expansion, has an unusually high melting point and has good thermal and electrical conductive properties. Also, alloys containing beryllium are corrosive resistant and small amounts of beryllium in an alloy gives this alloy a higher resistance to metal fatigue. These properties make the beryllium metal very useful in the aerospace, nuclear power, and electronics industries, along with the automobile and computers industries. (If you weren't reading this on the web, this is where you would be turning to figure 1)

[Simplex3]

The raw material from which beryllium was first refined was supplied from domestic deposits of beryl ore. With a domestic resource of beryl ore (beryllium), beryllium was immediately exploited for the first time industrially in the phosphors for fluorescent lights.

[Simplex3]

Brush II and C.Baldwin Sawyer started Brush Laboratories (1921), one of the first laboratories to further understand and explore commercial/industrial uses for beryllium. In 1926, the true value of beryllium was discovered. Beryllium was perfect as a precipitation hardener in cooper and nickel. Corson patented a beryllium-cooper-nickel alloy in United States. In Germany, around the same time as Corson's patent, Siemens, the German electrical components company, patented binary alloys of beryllium-cooper-cobalt in Germany.

[Simplex3]

The Beryllium Corporation of America, founded by Lester Hofheimer in 1927, was the first commercially producing company of beryllium-containing materials. Andre w Gahagan, decided to get into the beryllium industry in 1929 and formed the Bery llium Development Corporation, and later, gained control of the Beryllium Corporation of America and changed its name to the beryllium corporation(Berylco) in the year 1932. The patents and founding of several beryllium corporations sky-rocket ed between the years 1921, when Brush Laboratories was started to 1932 when Andre w Gahagan was trying to start a small monopoly.

[Simplex3]

Initially, in the 1930s,small amounts of Be-cooper alloys, Be-oxide compounds an d metallic beryllium were made but their growth in production was stimulated dramatically, through the increased demand of beryllium-cooper products used in World War II. Along with the increased demand of World War II, a third US producer of beryllium related products, manufactured beryllium oxide mainly for their use in the fluorescent lamp industry. Beryllium was starting to truly expand in its applications from metallic alloys to their use in fluorescent lights.

[Simplex3]

During and immediately following the second world war, a lot of research was being done in the area of nuclear fission and beryllium physical and chemical characteristics, lead to beryllium being of great interest to the nuclear scientists. This work, as well as all the previous work in the metallic alloys and fluorescent light industries, was done prior to any valid knowledge of the potential hazards of beryllium. Therefore, all this work was done without the use of any protection or precautions, which came back to due some serious damage to those who worked with beryllium directly and the industry.

[Simplex3]

As early as the 1930s, the period when beryllium products were being made in a high quantity, there were reports of a beryllium related disease which appeared in the European medical literature. These claims/reports went basically unnoticed or disregarded in the United States supposedly because the findings failed to show a clear and direct relationship of beryllium causing the disease. This may be the sole reason but bearing in mind that the United States was heavily dependent on these beryllium products in their military efforts of World War II, as well as being heavily invested in the beryllium alloys, there may have been other heavily weighing factors which the government did no want to explain so they choose to simply say that the European literature was scientifically unsound.

[Simplex3]

The beryllium related disease was first reported in Germany in 1933. This report stated that beryllium induced lung disease and was recognized as the cause of numerous cases of disability and death among beryllium workers. As well as this report from Germany, a fluorescent light company in Massachusetts reportedly had a few cases of a similar disease in the thirties and forties. Dr. Howard Van Ordstr and wrote the first paper on beryllium toxicity in the United States in 1943 and included three cases of "chemical pneumonia in workers extracting beryllium oxide. Interestingly enough, this important finding of Dr. Van Ordstrand, was overshadowed by the United States Public Health Service Bulletin, known as the Fairhall report.(10) The Fairhall Report stated that beryllium was toxicologically inert and speculated that the toxicity associated which beryllium was caused by the fluorides or oxyflourides in the compounds.(10) This among other errors and misconceptions were made in the exploration of beryllium's use which lead to various controversies and confusions while beryllium was initially being exploited. case and point, the Fairhall Report!

[Simplex3]

The reason for the gross mistakes in the research warranting the Fairhall Report is believed to be in the poor planning, and the questionable animal experiments along with the fact that there was a clear ignorance of the more appropriate and applicable human case reports. It took thirty years of the more knowledgeable scientists continually pointing out the blatant mistake of the Fairhall Report before the United States Public Health Service issued a document recanting the original finding of the Fairhall Report. During this thirty year time period, the Fairhall Report was considered valid and exact by the industry and manufacturers because after all, these finding were released by a government agency. So the manufacturers for thirty years or more, believed this report with 'blind faith'. It wasn't for approximately approximately fifteen years that the true hazards and standards for using beryllium were initially established.

[Simplex3]

With beryllium research being so contradictory and confusing as to the direct relationship of beryllium and the questionable disease many organizations and agencies were reluctant in issuing regulation on the use of beryllium. As an example, the State of California which is known for its strict governmental regulation and oversight, the scientific advisory panel of the State of California, in connection with proposition 65, addressed the problems by saying that,"...Beryllium is a good example of a chemical that for which the scientific data is very ragged, patchy and contains a lot of holes. Therefore, it is going to be very difficult to make any kind of regulatory or scientific decision based on the information that is available regarding its oral administration, its inhalation administration or administration by pulmonary routes."(12) This was stated in 1987, so even after the correction of the Fairhall Report there were still contradicting findings as to the exact hazards in dealing with beryllium. Various findings may have been clear as to the hazards of beryllium but they may not have been convincing enough to warrant governmental regulation. This being in 1987, the issue may have not been directly related to whether or not beryllium was hazardous but it may have been addressing more the uncertainty of beryllium's carcinogenic potential. This will be address further into the text and will show that beryllium's potential hazards are confusing and uncertain, at least for a period of time.

[Simplex3]

After the Van Ordstrand paper and the Fairhall Report, Van Ordstrand reported on 170 cases of dermal and respiratory illnesses among beryllium workers including five fatal cases of pneumonia. It is now recognized that beryllium can cause two types of lung injury1) an acute chemical pneumonitis, and (2) a chronic inflammatory lung lesion characterized by granuloma formation which is indistinguishable histopatyhologically from sarcoidosis.(figure 4

[Simplex3]

In 1946, Hardy and Tabershaw reported 17 cases of "delayed chemical pneumontis" among fluorescent lamp workers exposed to beryllium compounds. Of the 17, the first four all came from the same fluorescent lamp plant which led to the conclusion that it was an occupational lung disease. Further investigation and studies led to the delayed lung disease being called, chronic beryllium disease (CBD).As well as the chronic beryllium disease, there is also an acute illness which was initially mentioned in one of Van Ordstrand's earlier investigations of 1943.

[Simplex3]

Along with the 17 case findings of Hardy and Tabershaw(1946), other cases of CBD and 'neighborhood' cases were arising in Lorain, Ohio.

[Simplex3]

In Lorain Ohio, there was a beryllium processing plant and its workers as well people in the area around the plant were showing signs of the beryllium disease. This was interesting in that several of the individuals with the beryllium disease, never were employed in the beryllium plant and they had never knowingly been exposed to beryllium. Why then were these people if never exposed to beryllium, having symptom of the beryllium disease and how were they being exposed? What was found, was that the fumes and exhaust form the processing of the beryllium, were contaminating the air outside the plant and exposing the surrounding area to apparently toxic levels of beryllium. The amount of toxic material needed to induce berylliosis is in the range of milligrams to micrograms, and its onset can be from years to decades after exposure.

[Simplex3]

This lead to the establishment of 'out-plant' standards for beryllium which are still to this day in effect. This type of 'out-plant' regulation was the first of its kind and was 25 years before any other type of regulation was imposed for plant production and air pollution(1940s). According to Farber and Wilson(1961), the Lorain incident, "represents the first reported epidemiological study of a chronic disease due to air pollution in which beryllium has been established as the etiological agent."(5) Beryllium was ahead of its time as far as being regulated, although its disease and rapid growth of applications warranted such regulation.