Gentlemen, I am honored and humbly thankful for this opportunity to stand here before you testifying in behalf of myself and the many, many thousands affected as I am by the inhalation and ingestion of toxic metalic fumes liberated by the hot flame of the acetylene torch and the arc of the electric welding machine.

It is to be remembered that these temperatures are about 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit or three times the melting point of steel; liberating into the atmosphere toxic metals used in the manufacture of paints, such as lead, lead chromate, selenium, and so forth, metals that weaken the muscles and upset the blood stream by storing up in the bone and bone marrow.

First, there is fluoride, a deadly poison when used in insecticides. The law demands this poison be colored green for identification, with a skull and crossbones printed on the package, with due warning, "Poison" followed by first-aid directions should this poison be taken internally.

Fluoride, a poisonous chemical that changes to hydrofluoric acid within the human body on contact with the moist membranes, playing havoc upon the organs of the body, rotting the teeth, tearing the lungs to shreds and hardening the bones.

And there in this box, gentlemen, are my teeth [displaying].

Fluoride, used up to 31 percent in fluxes surrounding electric welding rods to be liberted as fine fumes into the confined atmospheres of ships, with no protection and no warning as to the dangers of this deadly poison, other than to be told it is nonaccumulative and therefore harmless.

The flux, Senator, is the white part surrounding the stubs of these welding rods I placed upon your desk for exhibit.

Manganese, another ingredient of welding fluxes, called the slow mineral crippling toxic poison. Manganese, a highly toxic metallic poison that attacks the central nervous system, driving men insane, crippling them, and burying them by the thousands with pneumonia. Cadmium, used in silver solder rods and liberated into the atnosphere sacking the blood stream, congesting the lungs, and men are buried with pneumonia.

Lithium salts, a metal used in medicine as a salt substitute, and which last year killed many people, causing the Bureau of Federal Security to send out radio warnings to all who may be using this substitute to destroy it, and to further protect the public they sent their men into the highways and byways to take the lithium from all drug-store shelves.

Not so with shipyard workers. They use it in welding fluxes, where it also poisons and kills. Here we have no warning, no Federal Security men protecting us from the ravages of these poisons inhaled into our lungs or swallowed into our stomachs. No. We are told that these fumes are nonaccumulative, and therefore harmless.

The manufacturer says, "Don't worry what is in the rod. Just be glad it does the work well."

Arsine, affecting the blood, stomach, kidneys, and lungs.

Cadmium, affecting the lungs, blood, kidneys, et cetera.

Carbon monoxide and nitrous fumes from combustion affecting the lungs and blood; if found dead, it was heart failure, not the fumes that killed the victim.

Chlorine, chromium, copper, hydrofluoric acid.

Lead, affecting the liver, stomach, bones, blood, and muscles. Manganese, affecting the muscles, joints, nerves, lungs, and emotions. And many more toxic metals, all ingredients of welding rods and welding rod fluxes made under secret formula, with no skull and crossbones or "poison" printed upon the labels of the container. And there on your desk before you, you have one container and a label from another container with no warning of what to do when we are made ill from the toxic fumes. No. Just a reminder that we are nuts, that the fumes are nonaccumulative, and no one else is complaining. That is what the company doctors tell us. The insurance companies remain quiet and smile.

Fluxes compounded under strict secrecy; and when we become ill they say, "We cannot divulge our secrets. Go see your doctor."

We see our doctor and are confounded. He is frank to tell us he does not know anything about fluoride and manganese and many of the other ingredients in the flux that we have inhaled. In fact, he does not know what is in the fluxes. How can he? Are they not secret?

I had several welding rods analyzed at a great cost to me, or the doctor would not know anything about my case.

And may I digress and say that Dr. Schwartz, an outstanding biological chemist of the city of New York, who has worked with Dr. Gonzales, medical examiner for New York City, analyzed my blood and urine, and you have his letter in the many exhibits on file with your committee. Dr. Schwartz, in this letter states specifically that in order to determine the manganese and the fluoride in the body liquids, the cost is so prohibitive that they don't do it, and, more startling, it has never been done. Dr. Gonzales' assistant in Bellevue Hospital told me, "If you were dead laying out there in our morgue on the slab, we could analyze your organs and determine how much of the poison is in your system."

I have sat down with Dr. Greenberg, the head or the chairman of your own New York State industrial and hygiene group, connected with the New York State Department of Labor, and Dr. Greenberg is a splendid man. He has told me the same thing. He is sorry they cannot do more. And all of these facts are in my exhibit.

Toxic metals causing disease, cancer, insanity, and death, with no warning to those exposed, often, too often, no blowers or methods of exhausting the fumes from the area. When blowers are to be found, too often they are inefficient, or the distance from atmosphere is beyond the reach of the flexible hose that is handy or the hose is so full of holes or squashed as to be unfit for use.

More important than all of this is the fact that if all the blowers and the hose were perfect, the welder is unable to follow his work and carry the tube along at the same time, and sooner or later you find him working in one corner and his blowpipe lying in another.

Mind you, gentlemen, there are no colleges that teach industrial medicine and very few hospitals, if any, equipped to handle my illness. And that includes Bethesda. Yet all the while industry, manufacturers who use welding rods, and those who make them, hide behind this curtain of medical ignorance and are allowed to continue to poison us by keeping their formulas secret, telling us to "Forget it, there are no others complaining."

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Others are complaining, but they have not done the research I have done and therefore are ignorant of their plight. The employer, the insurance carriers, the welding rod manufacturer, they do not seek medical aid for us. They do not cooperate with our doctors when we suspect the truth; as for example, take Mr. J. F. Lincoln of the Lincoln Electric Co., when I appealed to him to tell me what was in the rods so I could tell my doctor, feeling in my heart that if he knew what I had been exposed to he could properly diagnose my illness. Mr. Lincoln wrote me back as follows: "I doubt if we would be willing to send

develop ou free a formula which cost us more than $1 million to

Mr. J. H. Deppeler, of the Metal & Thermite Co., says, "Take it to your doctor. Your request is very unusual."

Mr. Smith of the McKay Co., and Mr. J. D. Gunther of Air Reduction, all welding rod manufacturers or distributors, say, "Take it to your doctor. We cannot help you.' With this lack of coopera

tion I am not getting better, I am getting worse.

If doctors do not know what is wrong, or what caused our illness, how can lawyers present a case in compensation?

I have visited many homes of dire poverty due to just this: No compensation; no medical aid; just poverty, misery, and torture. Why? Because welding rod manufacturers and the employers and the insurance companies fear they will be discovered in time and hope to put off that day.

Secret formulas of any kind affecting our health must go. There is no reason for them. Any company can do as I have done-analyze their competitors' rods. Workers and doctors are to be warned and instructed as to what dangers and what fumes we have been exposed to. Manufacturers and industry are to blame for my condition. I have submitted in my file of exhibits, now in the hands of your committee, photostats of letters from others afflicted as I am, bearing out that there are untold numbers suffering from this dread industrial disease, toxic systemic metallic poisoning, caused by inhalation of welding fumes.

Manufacturers and industry are duty-bound to protect our health, and in file of exhibits submitted to your committee through Senator Humphrey, you will see positive proof that they have failed not only miserably but willfully.

There are means mechanically that can be almost perfect. Don't just say blowers are on hand in all cases of welding. This may be so. Too often it is not so. Instead of depending on the welder who cannot do his work well and guide the exhaust flexible tube to exhaust the fumes, let us have a two-man welding team. One man to do the welding, the other to exhaust the fumes. It is as simple as that. Before the days of welding, a riveting team was composed of a heater, passer, buckerup, riveter, and often a driller or reamer. One man does all that work today through welding. Is it too much to ask that industry replace or put back just one of those men to safeguard the health of all the workers exposed to the deadly fumes?

There must be medical instruction both diagnostically as well as clinically to support a program of industrial medicine for those who become ill from the effects of fume inhalation, known to some doctors as metal fume fever, an illness classed as minor, but which can become fatal.

I close with these quotes.

The Report of Fume Hazards, Oregon Shipbuilding Co., Portland. Oreg. You can obtain a copy of this investigation brought about by the efforts of the metal trades unions of Portland. I know Congressman Sieminski, for whom I was able to obtain a copy, will lend it to you. It is on file with various organizations of your United States Government. And, by the way, in the back is a supplement showing men exposed-not welders, but every type of mechanic exposed to these fumes, many of whom died. The commissioner of labor for the State of Oregon told me that this investigation was the means for a change in the Oregon compensation law, making all industrial diseases compensable.

The Report of Fume Hazards, Oregon Shipbuilding Co., Portland, Oreg., states:

In short it must be remembered that in this great experiment in industry, man is the experimental animal and not the guinea pig.

Dr. Mueller, in Industrial Health, states:

Against poisons used in the trades a man can protect himself, provided he knows their origin and what their composition is.

And, digressing again, we don't know what chemicals are in that welding flux. They are secret.

Dr. Rutherford Johnstone, in Occupational Medicine and Industrial Hygiene, states:

No physician should be permitted to express glib opinions for which he can offer no accepted or established proof.

Diagnosis must be established to institute proper treatment.

The diagnosis must never be assumed.

Very few of the occupational diseases can be diagnosed without laboratory findings.

Moreover, it is the purpose of the act to provide medical care and compensation for all workers, without exclusion of any one disease. It should not be necessary that one or more workmen become martyrs before the law is changed to benefit those subsequently exposed.

That last quote, gentlemen, was about an all-coverage compensation law, but you cannot deny it fits this investigation or hearing as glaringly as it fitted the one it was intended for.

Gentlemen, I and the millions of your citizens exposed to fumes, whether they be welding or other industrial or chemical fumes, must be protected. Industry has failed miserably.

We refuse to be guinea pigs. These bills, S. 2325 and S. 2714, must be placed upon the floor and passed.

Do not let my appearance fool you. I am a sick man.

I welcome your further interest or challenge those here in the interest of defeating this bill to have me examined medically, physically, and mentally. I am a living proof that industry has failed.

Pass these bills, S. 2325 and S. 2714.

Senator LEHMAN. Thank you very much indeed.
Mr. HANCOCK. Thank you, Senator.

Senator LEHMAN. Do you want these returned?

Mr. HANCOCK. No, Senator. They are welding rod stubs I picked off the deck of a ship I worked on. For your own benefit, analyze them. And, as I said before, you have a complete exhibit, letters and a bibliography on where to find all the information of which I have spoken this day. I have named books, investigations. I have named page, paragraph, and line numbers for your help, and if I can be of any help I will walk here to Washington to do so, for I am now not able to work and am without any means of support other than my unemployment insurance on which I must depend for the next few months.

Senator LEHMAN. Thank you.

We will now recess until tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, when we have a number of other witnesses to hear.

Thank you.

(Whereupon, at 4:05 p. m., Tuesday, March 25, 1952, the hearing was recessed, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Wednesday, March 26, 1952.)