More Lawsuits Over 'Poisoning' In The Electronics Workplace

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More Lawsuits Over 'Poisoning' In The Electronics Workplace

By Greg Gordon

Minneapolis Star Tribune

5-27-2

Ron Porter says he spent 22 years breathing chemical vapors at IBM's

computer-components plant in Rochester, often in sanitized " clean rooms "

where solvents and coatings were used to make circuit boards.

The 65-year-old retiree says the vapors nearly killed him.

In a suit commenced Friday against 16 chemical manufacturers and suppliers,

including Maplewood-based 3M, Porter alleges that his exposure to more than

40 toxins at the plant from 1957 to 1979 destined him to a battle with

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, an often-fatal form of cancer.

His suit marks the first ripple in Minnesota from a widening wave of

litigation alleging that semiconductor and electronics plants have poisoned

hundreds, perhaps thousands, of workers. Porter's lawyer, Mike Sieben, said

his Hastings, Minn., firm -- Sieben Polk LaVerdiere & Hawn -- expects

to file 30 to 70 more cases on behalf of present and former Rochester

employees or their survivors.

IBM or companies that sold it chemicals already are contesting suits filed

since 1996 on behalf of 238 workers or their survivors in three other

states. The complaints allege that toxic vapors or skin exposures at IBM

plants in East Fishkill, N.Y., Essex Junction, Vt., and San , Calif.,

caused an array of cancers, miscarriages, damage to reproductive organs or

birth defects.

The chip-making industry counters that scientists have not established a

link between the chemicals at the plants and many of these illnesses or

injuries and that manufacturers complied with all applicable laws.

Molly Tuttle, a spokeswoman for the Semiconductor Industry Association

(SIA), said the industry has an excellent safety record, frequently going

beyond the requirements of state and federal chemical-exposure limits.

Porter's suit charges that the industry's clean rooms and workers'

protective clothing were designed to keep particles of dust and other

contaminants away from the circuit boards and other devices they were

making -- not to shield employees from toxins. The chemical manufacturers

and suppliers knew the dangers of solvents, resins and other chemicals but

led employees to believe they were safe, it alleges.

" The workers were often told, 'These clean rooms are safer than hospital

operating rooms,' " Sieben said. " Well, they weren't cleaner, because they

were awash in chemical vapors and fumes.

" We're now a generation into this experience, and the clusters of cancers

and birth defects are just coming to the fore. There are going to be, across

this nation, probably thousands of kids born with awful defects and even a

greater number of adults with avoidable cancers. "

None of the suits involving IBM workers has gone to trial. But last year,

IBM and two chemical makers, Union Carbide Corp. and Ashland Chemical,

agreed to settle a $40 million suit over a child's birth defects. In that

case, two workers alleged that their exposures in the clean room of the East

Fishkill plant caused chromosomal damage that led to their son being born

blind and with such severe malformations that he must breathe through a

tube.

'Science takes time'

Porter's Dakota County District Court suit, like most of those filed on

behalf of former IBM workers, does not name the company as a defendant.

Under laws in Minnesota and elsewhere, a worker can sue his employer for

worker's compensation benefits but can only sue for broad damages if he

proves the company intentionally harmed him. IBM faces 54 suits on behalf of

children with birth defects who do not face such legal restraints, according

to court documents.

Tim Dallman, a spokesman for IBM's Rochester plant, said the firm's

corporate policy " is not to comment on pending litigation. " He said the

plant stopped making computer components in the year 2000.

Tuttle, of the Semiconductor Industry Association, said that an SIA advisory

panel of scientists reported last year that " there's no scientific evidence

out there that cancer does result from working in the clean room. " But the

panel also said that there is insufficient evidence to rule out a cancer

link and urged that the industry consider an extensive cancer study. Tuttle

said the SIA is considering underwriting such a study.

In a letter last fall to the International Agency for Research on Cancer,

based in France, Prof. Bailar of the University of Chicago's Department

of Health Studies said that " although many American semiconductor companies

are large enough to conduct cancer epidemiology studies on their own, no

cancer study has been published to date. " The SIA's consideration of a

study, he said, has been " longstanding . . . with few tangible results. "

State and federal agencies have taken few regulatory actions.

Most of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA)

" permissible exposure limits, " which cover 461 of the thousands of

substances used in the United States, are at least 30 years old. OSHA's

research arm, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

(NIOSH), has recommended much tougher exposure limits for many of the

chemicals.

Further, the limits do not cover blends of chemicals even though their

combined concentrations might exceed the legal limit for exposure to one

substance.

In 1981, NIOSH issued a " hazard alert " notifying industries that exposure to

the glycol ether family of chemicals -- solvents widely used in the

electronics industry -- could cause reproductive problems. ,

a lawyer representing former IBM workers in New York and Vermont, said other

industries began to drop use of those chemicals but that semiconductor

companies continued to use them.

In 1987, OSHA issued a notice that it planned to set an exposure limit for

the chemicals, and it held hearings in the early 1990s. But it never adopted

a standard. Last month, the agency said it planned to reopen the matter in

July.

Minnesota's OSHA, which enforces federal workplace safety laws through

delegated authority, has only conducted one inspection at IBM's Rochester

complex over the last 30 years, the agency's records show. In 1990, an

inspector examined the plant's hazardous waste disposal system but did not

check worker exposures to chemicals.

Honnerman, a spokesman for Minnesota OSHA, said that scarce resources

have forced the agency to limit inspections to responding to complaints.

From 1980 to 1990, he said, the agency had 11 health inspectors to monitor

more than 100,000 work sites.

On May 14, 1998, Minnesota OSHA's workplace safety consultation unit honored

IBM's Rochester plant as one of the state's " safest work sites " because of

its safety programs and low injury and illness rates. Honnerman said the

agency had no way of knowing then about the pending allegations.

No trace

Plaintiffs in the semiconductor and computer components suits face a burden

of proof that is more challenging than in cases filed by people with lung

diseases from exposure to asbestos or silica dust. Unlike asbestos fibers or

silica particles that embed in the lungs, inhaled chemicals break down in

people's bodies and exit their systems without leaving a trace, experts say.

Dr. Barry Levy, a former acting Minnesota state epidemiologist who is an

expert in occupational medicine, said the best proof for plaintiffs comes

from epidemiological studies that track the health of large numbers of

people known to have been exposed to specific chemicals.

Levy, a likely expert witness for Porter, said he has reviewed more than 40

studies that examine whether organic solvents cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,

leukemia and other blood cancers. " There is no question in my mind that

organic solvents and other chemicals are causally associated with

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, " he said.

Porter, who retired in 1987 after working for 30 years at the IBM plant that

employs 5,500 people, said he was on a golf junket in Arkansas five years

ago when he developed a pain in his neck. Soon the pain traveled down his

left arm.

Returning home, he checked into the Mayo Clinic, where he underwent tests

and exploratory surgery that revealed two tumors, leading doctors to

discover that he was suffering from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

It was the start of a 14-month fight for his life that included chemotherapy

and radiation, spinal taps, a bone marrow transplant and hospitalization for

a nearly fatal post-operative infection.

Among defendants in his suit are Ashland Oil Co.; Union Carbide Corp., now a

wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co.; E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and

Co.; Germany-based Hoechst Celanese Corp., and Minnesota-based 3M, which

made two resins used at the plant.

3M spokesman Rick Renner said the company could not comment until its

lawyers review the complaint.

Spokespersons for Union Carbide and Du Pont said they could not comment on

pending litigation. Ashland and Hoechst Celanese did not respond to requests

for comment.

Following the chain

, a San lawyer representing former employees of IBM's

plant in California's Silicon Valley, said he and partner Hawes

sparked the Minnesota suits by sending thousands of postcards to Rochester

area residents in search of ex-workers with illnesses.

The first cases in New York had a more striking beginning.

Bill DeProspo, an attorney in Goshen, N.Y., said he was setting up his law

practice in 1995 when Barrack, a former IBM worker in his late 20s,

came to see him. Barrack suspected that his testicular cancer stemmed from

chemical exposure at the Fishkill plant, DeProspo said.

DeProspo asked his client: " How about the guy working next to you? "

He soon contacted a man in his early 20s who was suffering from

non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Deprospo said he continued to follow the chain.

" The first 11 people I contacted, " he said, " I found nine people with

cancer, two of them dead at ages 24 and 27. Even I could figure out that I

was onto something. "

-- Greg Gordon is at ggordon@...

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