Chemical world This WeeK DRUGS: Safer methadone tablet A methadone tablet developed by Vitarine Co., a division of West Chemical Products, may help pre­vent illicit use of methadone in treating heroin addicts. The new tablet, called Westadone, has re­ceived clearance from the Food and Drug Administration for use as an investigational drug.

The tablet has properties that make it safer than methadone pow­der and that make it difficult to be used illicitly. For example, it has a lower oral toxicity than the pow­dered form, it is noninjectable, and it is very difficult to swallow be­cause of its effervescence, large size, and bitter taste. The tablet can be taken in water or juice.

If concentrated in a small amount of water, powdered methadone can be injected to produce a "high" similar to that experienced with heroin, according to Vitarine presi­dent Irving F. Shaw. Thus, an il­licit traffic in methadone has de­veloped. Some persons have died from overdoses of the drug.

It is extremely difficult, if not im­possible, to obtain from the new tablet formulation an injectable so­lution of sufficient concentration to produce a "high," Mr. Shaw says. Animal tests indicate that metha­done in the Westadone tablet for­mulation is about half as toxic as methadone powder, although it is equivalent in other pharmacologi­cal respects.

Because of the drug's potential abuse and accidental use, many pa­tients have found it necessary to make daily trips to clinics to re­ceive dosages of methadone. With the new tablets, Mr. Shaw says, the cost of methadone maintenance pro­grams could be sharply reduced by giving patients a week's supply.

Eli Lilly & Co. says that it has been distributing a noninjectable methadone tablet (Disket) to meth­adone clinics for about a year.

NUCLEAR ENERGY: Fusion reactor soon The 4th International Conference on Plasma Physics and Controlled Nuclear Fusion, sponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency and held last week at the University of Wisconsin in Madi­son, was "about six months too early," according to one partic­ipant. He might have made such

a remark no matter when the meet­ing was held; nevertheless he had a point: A number of important experiments are just now getting under way. These experiments, says Dr. T. K. Fowler of Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, "will push on to the higher temperatures and densities where the real problems lie." With these problems an­swered, he adds, "we will soon be on the road to building a fusion re­actor." The conference, in fact, in­cluded for the first time an entire session on reactor systems—per­haps indicative of how far the field has advanced since the first confer­ence on plasma physics and con­trolled nuclear fusion in 1961.

The consensus was that the most exciting advances had been in re­search on Tokamaks—experimental controlled nuclear fusion devices using a doughnut-shaped plasma container. U.K. and U.S.S.R. teams described a mode of opera­tion in which the "bootstrap" cur­rent around the torus—sustained by radial diffusion of the plasma— would replace the usual applied in­ductive electrical field. Thus, in principle at least, the Tokamak could be maintained in a steady state, if new ions were continually supplied.

Other scientists attacked the problems of reactor startup and initial heating. One U.S.S.R. ap­proach involves the use of an in­tense beam of electrons, colliding with encased solid deuterium-trit­ium fuel pellets. A U.S. team sug­gested using short-pulse, high-power laser beams for the initial heating.

Dr. Roy J. Bickerton, of U.K.'s Culham Laboratory, states flatly that Tokamak has the potential to be scaled up to reactor size. "In simplest terms," Dr. Bickerton says, "future progress apparently depends only on increasing the gas current and on applying auxiliary heating methods."

At a press conference following the meeting, Dr. Roy Gould, head of AEC's controlled thermonuclear re­search program, noted "the opin­ions of many" that it should be possible to demonstrate the scien­tific feasibility of fusion power "in this decade." However, he points out, experiments are getting much larger and consequently much more costly; such an objective within the decade cannot be met without doubling, on the average, current levels of funding.

JOB HEALTH: Three-way program for BFG B. F. Goodrich, the United Rubber Workers, and Harvard University's school of public health have signed a contract that will activate what may be the first tripartite industrial health program in U.S. industry.

The joint program, first agreed to in June 1970 as part of the labor-management contract forged at that time between seven large rub­ber companies and URW, includes plans for long-range epidemiolog­ical study of job-related health ef­fects. This study will be conducted at Harvard by an occupational re­search study group working under a director from Harvard who has yet to be named. The research group will also assist BFG in devel­oping safe working environments and controls over new chemicals and processes.

Dr. James L. Whittenberger, dean of Harvard's school of public health, who represented the school at contract signing ceremonies, says that opportunities for epidemio­logical studies such as the one his people will undertake have been "pretty rare" and that results have not usually been published in the open literature. BFG has agreed to such publication, as long as confi­dential and proprietary informa­tion is not disclosed.

Overseeing the plan will be an Oc­cupational Health Committee, com­posed of three union and three com­pany representatives. This com­mittee will review questions passed up from the local plant level; pro­vide sickness, accident, and other relevant data to the Harvard group; and make recommendations for im­plementing the research group's findings. Where existing data are unavailable, the Harvard health scientists will be able to conduct in­dependent studies at any of the nine BFG plants covered by the agree­ment.

BFG's director of industrial rela­tions, J. W. Reynolds, notes that the company developed a program 25 years ago for monitoring and safe­guarding employees in handling of known hazardous materials. Dr. Whittenberger adds that there is no disease known to be peculiar to rub­ber making, though higher than average incidence of bladder can­cer has been reported for rubber workers in the U.S. and the U.K.

Bladder cancer is among the problems that URW president Peter

8 C&EN JUNE 28, 1971

Bommarito thinks may be worth looking at. Others are the effects of long-term exposure to toluene diisocyanate fumes and the re­lationship of such exposure to loss of lung capacity; cancer of salivary glands; gall bladder problems; dan­gerous chemical combinations (where no single component is dan­gerous by itself); and, in general, the effects of long-term exposure to gases, fumes, and chemicals.

Another potential problem Mr. Bommarito mentions might be worth investigating is the occur­rence of heart palpitations among workers who drink beer after ex­posure to carbon disulfide.

The expenses incurred by the Harvard study group will be paid by BFG to a maximum equal to 0.5 cent per man-hour for the 11,000 workers covered under the plan. The tab will run about $100,000 per year, according to BFG's Mr. Reynolds.

For all the rubber companies in­volved, Mr. Bommarito says that more than $1.5 million is now avail­able for health studies. As yet, BFG is the only company to have selected an academic partner. Mr. Bommarito observes that the rub­ber industry health pact "may well serve to set the pattern for similar programs for the millions of in­dustrial workers" in the U.S.

APOLLO 15: Scientific sophistication As the Apollo program to explore the moon enters its last few mis­sions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is increasing its emphasis on scientific sophisti­cation. For instance, on the Apollo 15 mission, scheduled for launching July 26, astronauts David R. Scott, James B. Irwin, and Alfred M. Wor-den have trained in various aspects of geology and other sciences. The astronauts will also have available new equipment as aids, most spec­tacular of which is the lunar roving vehicle.

The lunar module crew are to land in an area called the Hadley-Apennine site, selected so that sam­ples may be collected of what NASA scientists expect to be basaltic ma­terial from deeper parts of the moon's crust. The astronauts are to land a few kilometers from the Hadley Rille, a topographic feature somewhat comparable in depth and width to parts of the Grand Canyon. Thus, the crew should also be able

to get samples and data of materials involved in rille formation and of materials from nearby Apennine mountains.

Most of the scientific experiments of earlier Apollo missions on the moon will be repeated, though of­ten in more complex forms. The major new experiment will be to measure heat flows under the moon's crust. (This experiment was to have been done on the Apollo 13 mission, but the craft never landed.) A specially designed drill, weighing 29 earth pounds, or about 5 pounds on the moon, operating on a rotary percussion principle to produce minimum heat, will be used by astronaut Scott to drill two holes 10 feet deep during the first of three periods of moon explora­tion. Probes inserted in the holes and connected to a central data transmitter will indicate subsur­face temperature changes. Results from these probes could go a long way to resolve the conflict of opin­ion on whether the moon's interior is hot or cold.

URANIUM ENRICHMENT: AEC files available While part of the Government was going to court to keep classified papers out of the public press last week, another part, the Atomic En­ergy Commission, quietly ended a ban on industry access to classified AEC files on uranium enrichment technology to be used in independ­ent R&D work. AEC's action, aimed at spurring private industry interest in uranium enrichment, will still keep "sensitive" informa­tion classified, including any tech­nology developed by participating firms, except to participants.

Under the new program, AEC plans to give security clearances to a few officials of about 25 "selected" companies. Those selected would get access to AEC's files on enrich­ment technology so that each could draw up formal proposals to con­duct R&D on the gas centrifuge and

One of AEC's gaseous diffu

I gaseous diffusion enriching proc­esses. AEC would next pick about 10 firms from the group and allow them to conduct enrichment R&D at their own expense.

When AEC banned private in­dustry R&D on gas centrifuge tech­nology in March 1967, four com­panies were conducting R&D on the enrichment process: Allied Chem­ical jointly with General Electric, and W. R. Grace jointly with Elec­tro-Nucleonics. An Allied Chemical spokesman, noting the company's interests in nuclear technology, which includes a partnership with Gulf Oil in a $90 million nuclear fuel reprocessing plant, says the company is interested in AEC's proposals but wants to see them before making any comments. A spokesman for W. R. Grace says flatly that the company isn't inter­ested, and notes that in 1969 Grace divested itself of its nuclear fuel re­processing facility.

The Government's three gaseous diffusion uranium enriching plants are operated under contract with AEC. Union Carbide operates the Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Paducah, Ky., plants, and Goodyear runs the Portsmouth, Ohio, plant. A Union Carbide spokesman tells C&EN's Washington bureau head, Fred Zerkel, that "if and when we are selected, as we feel fairly sure we will be, we will be interested in talking to them." A Goodyear spokesman, meanwhile, says that the company will consider the pro­posal, but it's too early to say what the company will decide.

AEC notes that West Germany and the Netherlands, for instance, have private industrial firms work­ing on uranium enrichment. More­over, additional U.S. enriching ca­pacity may be needed by 1980, AEC says. By allowing U.S. indus­try to become familiar with enrich­ing technology, AEC's action could lead to industry investment in new enriching facilities, a private ura­nium enriching capacity, or facil-

I ities to make enriching equipment. ion uranium enriching plants