ANNEX B 

OPEN LETTER TO THE SEMINAR ON CHEMICALS

By OIRES VALTER BARBOSA

Salvador, January 22^nd 2006 

(Summary)

This very moving letter was addressed to all participants of the National Seminar on Chemicals and to the public opinion to clarify what Mr. Barbosa has been suffering and to show how the VEDACIT Company has been negligent and indifferent to its workers.  

VEDACIT, a German company, is one of the greatest companies in Brazil, or even in the world, in the waterproof materials production area (chemicals products for civil building), but it does not assume its social and environmental obligations before the Brazilian society and Judiciary Power.  

Mr. OIRES VALTER BARBOSA reports that he was contaminated during the several years working at VEDACIT, and that he never was informed on the risks and never received protection equipment or specific training.  He also reveals that the workers who make legal claims against the company are treated by it as villains and opportunists willing to blackmail it.  

Mr. Oires also said that the company did not show interest to investigate his skin cancer diagnosed in 1994, and did not offer the professionals support such as a labor doctor, a chemical engineer and a labor safety technician.  

However, at the VEDACIT industrial plant where Mr Oires worked, there were toxic substances like benzene, xylene, asphalt, turpentine, etc.  Many of them may remain in the human organism for decades, and in a short, medium and long term they are responsible for grave anomalies such as malign hepatic and thyroid tumors, neurological disturbances, neuropathies, etc. The contamination by these highly dangerous substances caused him severe health problems, such as loss of the thyroid gland, loss of the bladder and two pieces of his liver, having been diagnosed and removed six skin cancers too. Afterwards, several internal organs were also contaminated, since the disease was not diagnosed and treated in the beginning.