Lung disease takes toll on Ohio man

ELMORE, Ohio (AP) — Pug Renwand admits he’s scared. He’s scared of the day when his chronic beryllium disease, the lung illness that has afflicted him for 10 years, might force him to carry an oxygen tank around to help him breathe.

He worries he might lose the dream house he worked so hard to build because he can’t afford mortgage payments. He said he can’t work for more than a few hours a day without becoming tired and winded, so he doesn’t have a job.

And he wonders whether the disease eventually will kill him.

“I think about my grandkids and watching them grow up,” he said.

Renwand did not expect his life to turn out this way when he started working at Brush Wellman’s plant near Elmore in 1978. He said he contracted the disease that causes inflammation of lung tissue at the plant.

Renwand was in his early 20s when Brush hired him as a machinist and grinder. The company makes beryllium, a metal lighter than aluminum and stiffer than steel that is used in everything from medical equipment like X-ray machines to military devices.

Through the years, Renwand earned enough money to keep his family comfortable and build his home near Oak Harbor. He enjoyed the work and felt confident Brush’s pension plan would take care of him after he retired.

Then everything changed in the late 1990s. He became short of breath and easily tired while trying to complete tasks — like mowing the lawn or fixing things around the house — that had been part of his daily life.

After he was diagnosed, he left Brush Wellman.

“I feel like an old man,” the 52-year-old said. “I used to run and lift weights. I was in really good shape. “That got taken away from me.”

People get chronic beryllium disease through exposure to beryllium dust or fumes, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

When a person contracts it, the immune system creates cells in the bloodstream to fight the beryllium particles. Consequently, the cells fighting the beryllium particles lead to scarring of the lungs.

“It’s your immune system that does the damage,” said Dennis Habrat, Brush Wellman occupational health affairs director.

There have been 230 cases of the disease among Brush workers across the country, Habrat said. Brush spokesman Patrick Carpenter said the company has three plants where beryllium is used — Elmore, Tucson, Ariz. and Reading, Pa.

The beryllium industry is relatively small, and Brush is the largest producer, he said. The disease was first identified in the 1940s among workers in the fluorescent light industry and then found in beryllium manufacturing workers, according to a Brush Wellman.

Some of first generations of sufferers were called “Cold War heroes” because they contracted the disease after World War II while doing nuclear research that involved beryllium.

Carpenter said Brush Wellman immediately began to take measures to prevent beryllium exposure after cases where first discovered in the company during the 1940s.

Local employees, however, continued to be diagnosed in the ’90s. Through the years, however, prevention methods have evolved, Carpenter said.

Since 2002, the majority of Brush workers have worn respirators while at work, according to Carpenter.

Brush also joined with the CDC to show how workers can minimize risk of exposure.

They can stop the spread of beryllium particles by keeping work areas clean, changing clothes immediately when they notice their work uniforms have dirt spots, wearing gloves when they have cuts on their hands and cleaning all tools, shoes and equipment before those items leave the work area, according to the model implemented in 2000.

No Brush employees hired since 2001 have contracted the disease at the Ohio plant, Carpenter said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration set the limit for allowable beryllium exposure in the workplace to 2 micrograms per cubic meter in an 8-hour period. That means no more than a pencil-tip-sized amount of beryllium dust can spread through the area the length of a football field with an 8-foot ceiling.

OSHA’s standard, however, has not been adequate to prevent the disease.

Carpenter said Brush Wellman’s standard for exposure already is 10 times lower than OSHA’s requirement.

The disease affects its victims in various ways.

Some — such as former Brush machinist Gary Renwand, of Oak Harbor, who is Pug Renwand’s father — need an oxygen tank to breathe. Others, like former Brush maintenance worker Mike Bauer, of Fremont, have breathing problems but can still work.

And some show almost no symptoms and live normal lives, Habrat said.

Gary Renwand worked at Brush for 35 years before leaving in 1993 when he was diagnosed with the disease. Since then, he said the disease has caused him to develop diabetes, sleep apnea and osteoporosis.

Today, the 70-year-old earns a pension from the company, which paid him disability when he left and now pays retirement benefits, and spends most of his days at home.