The Ongoing History of Harm Caused and Hidden by the Viscose Rayon and Cellophane Industry

Fake Silk: The Lethal History of Viscose Rayon By Paul David Blanc

328 pp.; $40 New Haven, CT: Yale University Press; 2016 ISBN-13: 978-0300204667

Fake Silk is author Paul Blanc’s second book bringing the story of occupational and environmental medical disasters to a broad readership. Unlike his 2007 University of California Press book How Everyday Products Make People Sick,¹ a series of case studies, Fake Silk offers readers an in-depth history of one industrial toxin, carbon disulfide. He describes the damage resulting from its use by national and global corporations in a variety of industrial processes spanning two centuries and two world wars, leaving multitudes of sick and dead workers in its wake.

Blanc, an internationally renowned specialist in occupational and environmental medicine, tells the story of the heartbreaking neuropsychiatric and cardiovascular diseases caused by workers’ exposure to this poison, but we learn much more than toxicology. Blanc is also a consummate historian who skillfully weaves together the fibers of history, political economy, corporate intrigue, and contemporary culture into a compelling fabric, the tale of carbon disulfide and the products created by its use.

Fake Silk is filled with the rich stories of the lives of the principal actors: the scientists, physicians, industrialists, and, not least, the workers whose personal histories were intimately connected to the use of carbon disulfide and the manufacture of rubber, viscose rayon, and cellophane.

CARBON DISULFIDE

Blanc begins with the synthesis of carbon disulfide in the late 18th century and the path of scientific inquiry of its chemistry. As the properties of this highly reactive chemical are explored, the first hints of its toxicity begin to emerge as mice and men clearly showed evidence of neurological disease.

Carbon disulfide soon moved from the lab to commercial enterprises by the second half of the 19th century, including electroplating and cold vulcanization of rubber. Shortly thereafter followed reports of neuropsychiatric disease among occupationally exposed workers. One would think that alarm bells would have sounded worldwide regarding the dangers of this chemical, but Blanc chronicles the heartbreaking story of how these reports were intentionally ignored, minimized, and buried as industry became threatened by their implications.

Carbon disulfide use exploded in the early 20th century with the invention of the artificial silk viscose rayon. Production of this synthetic fiber was built on technology developed in France, Germany, and the United States. Blanc takes us through the development of this first massive multinational industry from its infancy to the establishment of operations throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

EARLY SUSPICIONS

Industrial expansion was followed by an increase in reports of the adverse health effects of carbon disulfide exposure. Blanc cites numerous examples of physicians and scientists passionately describing the deplorable conditions of exposed workers and calling for better worker protection. Unfortunately, they often faced off against those of their peers who shamelessly covered up for powerful industry interests. This battled raged in many countries but, as Blanc reports, it rarely resulted in substantive regulatory action.

The working population exposed to carbon disulfide increased yet again with the invention of cellophane, a viscose film. This clear wrapping material had a multitude of uses and was an enormous commercial success. Blanc describes how the economic success of viscose fiber and film manufacture influenced popular culture by providing fascinating glimpses of references to cellophane and rayon in novels, movies, and songs.

The exponential success of these viscose products logically resulted in a tragic explosion of morbidity and mortality among members of the workforce exposed to carbon disulfide. Blanc describes investigations into outbreaks of carbon disulfide toxicity in the United States, involving the legendary occupational medicine physician Alice Hamilton. He details cases of afflicted workers struggling for compensation as well as the larger battles for strict regulatory intervention, stark examples of the conflict between the interests of workers and their employers. All too often, the power of the viscose industry prevailed over the health of the workforce.

“RAYON GOES TO WAR”

The story of viscose rayon and cellophane has an even darker side during World War II. In a chapter titled “Rayon Goes to War,” Blanc recounts the role of viscose commodities in the war economies of allied and axis powers. Worker health and safety, never at the top of industrial priorities, sank even lower during the war years and found its lowest level in the brutal conditions faced by concentration camp slave laborers working in viscose factories in axis occupied countries. Blanc details first-person accounts including that of imprisoned French resistance fighter Agnès Humbert, who described the appalling conditions suffered by prison laborers working alongside free German and Dutch workers.

Conditions for nonprisoners in Mussolini’s Italy were also deplorable, as documented in reports from Italian secret police operatives. They were sent into factories to uncover antifascist spies and reported horrendous conditions to their handlers. After the war, the industry rebounded and grew as corporations shuffled and reorganized their assets and rebuilt factories in Japan and war-torn Europe.

CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES

By the 1960s, new manifestations of carbon disulfide toxicity began to receive attention, particularly the development of cardiovascular disease. Given that heart disease is common in the general population, this work required the techniques of modern epidemiology. Investigators such as Richard Schilling and J. N. Morris in the United Kingdom and Thomas Mancuso, working for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the United States, showed a clear association between carbon disulfide exposure and increased mortality from heart disease.

Blanc illustrates once again how the industry responded to these data by sponsoring scientists to prepare reports favorable to its point of view. In one example, the industry recruited researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health to perform a study intended to minimize the association of carbon disulfide with cardiovascular disease. The authors omitted data on the youngest workers, the ones most likely to show the strongest effects, and watered down their findings with many caveats. This, combined with testimony from other industry-financed experts, obfuscated the positive results and was used to influence regulations then being considered by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The result was no reduction in the US exposure limit.

The damage caused by carbon disulfide was not limited to occupational exposures. Blanc describes several examples of environmental damage affecting US towns and waterways near major installations.

THE STORY CONTINUES

The story of carbon disulfide and its trail of occupational and environmental damage is not just of historical interest. The chemical is still in wide use today. Although the viscose rayon industry in the United States and Europe has shuttered many of its factories, global production has increased, having been shifted to South and East Asia. Carbon disulfide is still used in the manufacture of rubber vulcanizing accelerators and in pesticides.

In Fake Silk, Blanc has composed a comprehensive journey into the history of the social cost of carbon disulfide, an important modern industrial compound. Using primary sources from Europe, Asia, and the Americas, along with cultural sources (movies, magazines, newspapers, and books) and personal interviews with workers, he has created a profound history of carbon disulfide exposures. He teaches us toxicology, medicine, public health, political economy, and history, made even more palatable by his delightful cultural side trips and personal histories that bring home the human side of this all-too-common story: the power of corporate financial interests to pursue profit at the expense of workers’ health.