Vinyl chloride: a saga of secrecy

This chapter is about how early warnings in the 1950s and 1960s concerning the short-term harm of vinyl chloride (VC) to the skin and bones of workers, and to the livers of laboratory animals, were initially hidden from other workers and regulators. This was despite some early misgivings by company experts whose advice was initially ignored by their employers. This pattern was repeated when the later, more devastating news of a rare liver cancer in workers was revealed by long‐term animal studies and by an attentive and concerned company physician.