OSHA called on to create standard for butter flavoring chemical

Is popcorn a safety hazard? It is when you consider diacetyl, the chemical used to make artificial butter flavor for the popular snack, is responsible for at least three deaths and 200 injuries to workers who breathed it and contracted a lung disease.

Last week, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and the Teamsters union formally asked OSHA to immediately issue an emergency temporary standard that would set a maximum for exposure to diacetyl and require employers to provide workers with respirators.

OSHA has no enforceable standard for diacetyl, but permits the establishment of emergency temporary standards if employees face grave danger from exposure to substances for which no standards exist.

The lung disease the workers contracted, bronchiolitis obliterans, has been labeled “popcorn workers lung,” but it affects other workers in the food industry, since diacetyl is used to add butter flavor to a variety of foods.

About 60,000 workers in the two unions that brought action work in plants that use diacetyl. And there may be over one million non-union workers who also work in them.

OSHA refused to consider a new regulation that would protect workers from exposure to diacetyl despite urging by OSHA scientists to take further action. Now, Cal/OSHA is considering the unions’ request.