![Zachary Ruffing, 15, was born with deformities that his mother, Faye Calton, attributes to chemicals at her workplace. [see articles below]](Ethylene-Glycol-Ethers12sep03.GIF)
Zachary Ruffing, 15, was born with deformities that his mother, Faye Calton, attributes to chemicals at her workplace. [see articles below]
Ethylene glycol ethers are a group of organic solvents that proved to be extremely effective at coating surfaces evenly. They've been used in paints, nail polish, de-icers and many other products. One of their most important industrial applications was in the semiconductor industry. These marvelous chemicals, E.G.E.'s, were the key ingredients in a solution used in the fabrication of computer chips.
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Zachary Ruffing, 15, was born with deformities that his mother, Faye Calton, attributes to chemicals at her workplace. [see articles below] |
But there were some problems. Studies began emerging in the late 1970's that showed these chemicals wreaking havoc with the reproductive processes in rodents. They were linked to testicular damage, miscarriages and birth defects.
Even as the warnings grew louder, workers by the thousands were toiling in the "clean rooms" where extraordinary amounts of toxic chemicals, including E.G.E.'s, were being put to use in the manufacture of chips, disks and other electronic components.
In the early 1980's, both the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the California Department of Health Services issued alerts regarding workers exposed to E.G.E.'s. The fear was that the reproductive problems found in the animal studies might also be occurring in humans.
Some industries moved with dispatch to get E.G.E's out of the workplace. But the booming semiconductor industry, which powered the spectacular computer revolution that shaped the last third of the 20th century, was not one of them.
Worker safety would have to wait.
The awareness of a potential problem was certainly there. In the spring of 1982, the Semiconductor Industry Association formally alerted industry executives to the results from the animal studies. And the following September the Chemical Manufacturers Association issued an alert.
Years passed, additional documentation piled up, and studies of humans began to turn up problems similar to those found in animals.
By the late 1980's, the industry could no longer hide from the issue. A study at a Digital Equipment Corporation plant in Hudson, Mass., had shown a marked increase in miscarriages among semiconductor workers. Industry leaders immediately complained that the sample was too small. Larger studies were commissioned by both the Semiconductor Industry Association and I.B.M.
The hope at the time was that the larger studies would refute the findings of the smaller one. The opposite occurred.
The I.B.M. study was conducted by Johns Hopkins University, and it found a big link between miscarriages and exposure to E.G.E.'s. "Women with the highest exposure potential," the study said, "had a threefold increased risk of spontaneous abortion compared to female employees with no potential for direct exposure to E.G.E."
The study said, "We also found evidence that the work on processes with direct exposure to E.G.E. was associated with an increased risk of subfertility in female employees and a suggestion of a similar effect in male employees and their wives."
The study by the Semiconductor Industry Association came up with similar findings. The reproductive havoc was not limited to rodents.
I.B.M. stopped using E.G.E.'s in all new processes in 1992 and finally stopped using them altogether in 1995, a decade and a half after the warnings began circulating. No one knows how many workers may have been harmed in that period.
A spokesman for I.B.M. said in an e-mail message yesterday that "finding suitable alternative materials for processes in semiconducting manufacturing is a complex process."
A peculiar thing about the I.B.M. study was that while it focused on reproductive processes right up until the moment of birth, it did not study the health outcomes of newborns - to what extent, for example, they might have suffered from birth defects.
In the damage suits that have been brought against I.B.M. by more than 200 of its employees are a number of cases of hideous birth defects that the plaintiffs allege were caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, including ethylene glycol ethers.
I.B.M. has already thrown in the towel in one case, that of Zachary Ruffing [see article below], a teenager who was born blind and extremely deformed to parents who had both worked in the company's plant in East Fishkill, N.Y., in the 1980's.
While I.B.M. and two of its chemical suppliers agreed to settle the case, they did not acknowledge that they had done anything wrong.
Case involved microchip site workers' son
A lawsuit described as the first to test claims that chemicals in a microchip plant could be harmful to people has been settled, the parties said Monday. IBM Corp. and attorneys for Zachary Ruffing, a 15-year-old whose parents both had worked in the 1980s at IBM's East Fishkill plant, confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
Settlements typically involve payment by the defendant. Neither side would disclose what IBM or two chemical companies involved in the suit would pay.
IBM said ''human factors'' played a role in the decision. It still denies guilt.
''I think it's an enormously important case, partly because of the really serious damage suffered by Zach Ruffing and his family, and partly because this is the first major test case of its kind involved the high-tech industry,'' said Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose, Calif.
Judge must sign off
The agreement must still go before state Supreme Court Justice John P. DiBlasi in White Plains to be ratified. His approval of the parties' agreement would cancel the trial set to begin Feb. 27.
The issue isn't over. There are still 157 people who are suing either IBM or the chemical makers that remain as defendants in White Plains, and about 70 in San Jose. About 70 percent of the plaintiffs in White Plains worked at East Fishkill or had parents who did.
Ruffing sued in 1997 for $40 million, claiming severe birth defects and blindness were caused by processing chemicals used by his parents, Michael Ruffing and Faye Calton.
DiBlasi severed some chemical companies from the case last week, ruling that Ruffing's attorneys hadn't shown enough connection. But Union Carbide and Ashland Chemical remained as defendants along with IBM.
A statement released Monday from spokeswoman Carol Makovich at IBM's Armonk headquarters read in part:
''Cases settle because parties take into account the many contingencies, risks and unknowns of litigation, along with economic factors such as the cost of litigation and the distractions that can be created by lengthy trial proceedings.''
''IBM firmly believes, based upon state-of-the-art science, that it had no liability in this case and that it did not act wrongfully in any manner. Although the Ruffing family felt justified in bringing this action, they now request that they be permitted to go on with their lives in a private fashion. Neither IBM nor the family (nor their respective counsel) will be issuing any further or different statements in this matter.''
William DeProspo, a Goshen attorney for the plaintiffs, said he awaits DeBlasi's call for suggestions on how to proceed on the 157 remaining plaintiffs.
''Ultimately it will be up to Judge DiBlasi to determine how the litigation, or a portion of the litigation, will proceed from here,'' he said.
source: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/projects/ibm/bu012301s1.shtml 15sep03Poughkeepsie Journal
Zachary Ruffing, 15, was born with deformities that his mother, Faye Calton, attributes to chemicals at her workplace.
About 10 million Americans are exposed to chemical solvents in the workplace, despite a growing body of evidence that they can cause illnesses such as liver failure, neurological damage and even cancer.
That means roughly one in 13 workers faces health risks from solvent exposure, in businesses as diverse as neighborhood dry cleaners to the $205 billion computer-chip industry.
And while railroad workers are no longer being exposed to the chlorinated solvents that hundreds say caused brain damage, occupational health doctors and worker advocates say people are still being sickened by those same solvents and related chemicals.
The examples can be found in Kentucky and across the nation.
''This is . . . one of the most pervasive problems within industry,'' said Dr. Douglas H. Linz, an occupational and environmental health physician in Cincinnati who has diagnosed dozens of workers in various fields with solvent-related illnesses in the past 20 years. ''It's a very significant public health problem.''
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also thinks so. The nation's top workplace safety agency has identified reducing solvent exposure as one of its top priorities.
But OSHA has been hamstrung by laws so restrictive that in 30 years it has been able to set exposure limits for only one-half of 1 percent of the 79,000 industrial chemicals registered with the federal government.
Those limits are considered inadequate by both environmentalists and the chemical industry in most cases. The vast majority of the limits haven't been updated since the agency adopted them wholesale in the 1970s, largely from a private group of government and industry health and safety professionals.
Said Bill Perry, OSHA's deputy director for health standards: ''We're still trying to appropriately address hazards that have been around for decades, let alone dealing with any new chemicals.''
SOLVENTS ABOUND
Usage popular despite knowledge of toxicity
It would be hard to imagine life without solvents.
From the tiny, round tip of a ballpoint pen to the paint on a shiny, red sports car, thousands of products that we take for granted rely upon chemical solvents for cleaning, coating, dissolving and flowing smoothly.
In short, solvents do for industrial materials what water does for dirt.
From carpet glue to cleaning and stripping fluids, solvents have such widespread usage that tiny amounts can be found in outdoor air and in public water sources. At General Motors' Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., robotic arms spray paint on plastic panels, a job that used to be performed by workers with spray guns attached to hoses. By Pam Spaulding, The C-J
Their popularity belies the fact that some solvents -- such as methylene chloride, a common paint stripper -- have been known to be toxic to humans for at least 60 years.
Since the mid-1970s, scientific journals have published dozens of studies reporting associations between solvents and various worker illnesses: computer-chip workers with miscarriages; leather tanners with testicular cancer; painters with brain damage; dry cleaners with esophageal cancer.
Other studies have linked chronic solvent exposure with breast cancer, leukemia, certain birth defects, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, hepatitis, hearing loss, dermatitis, irregular heartbeat, and more.
Chemical industry representatives say workplace exposure has been controlled to the point that even if solvent exposure once induced health problems, those situations have been outlawed or eliminated voluntarily.
''At current exposures, we don't see any reasons to suspect chronic health effects,'' said Stephen P. Risotto, executive director of the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance.
The 20-year-old lobbying group represents manufacturers and users of chlorinated solvents such as perchloroethylene, the solvent used by 85 percent of dry-cleaners.
Risotto said the solvent manufacturers and users he represents don't want workers to become sick. That's why they support testing and compliance with recommended usage guidelines.
But Richard Wiles, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group, a researchand policy-oriented non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., said that the system of chemical testing and workplace health standards has failed miserably, and that no one should rely upon it for protection.
Consumers assume that household products are safe, when in fact complete toxicity test results are available for only about 7 percent of chemicals in use today, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Workers assume that their employers are protecting them from chemicals by meeting OSHA standards, when in actuality those standards are so weak they are a ''pathetic embarrassment,'' Wiles said.
''When somebody gets hurt, that's when an agency takes some action,'' Wiles said. ''The workers are at the drop zone; they're at ground zero.''
LAW SPURS CHANGE
Clean Air Act forces out some harmful solvents
It wasn't federal workplace regulations that drove most businesses to change, cut back or cease their solvent use.
It was, instead, the landmark 1970 Clean Air Act and its major revisions in 1990, which targeted chemicals that cause smog or deplete the Earth's ozone layer.
''In a gallon of paint, solvent emissions are 70, 80, 90 percent less than what they were 25 years ago,'' said David Salman, an environmental engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency who works with the printing and painting industries.
Nhu-Hong Le gave Ralph Daniago a manicure at her nail salon in Wilmington, Del. She uses a ventilated manicure table that draws away chemical fumes. By Monique Brunsberg, Special to The C-J
Mike Dillard cleaned parts in solvent vapors at Detrex Corp. in Bowling Green, Ky.
By Pam Spaulding, The C-J
Automated processes have reduced worker exposure further in some cases.
At General Motors' Corvette plant in Bowling Green, Ky., for example, the sports car's plastic panels wind on a twomile-long track through the paint shop, where four robot arms spray on brilliant paint colors like ''millennium yellow'' or ''magnetic red.'' The threelayered coating is precisely 0.0035-inch thick.
Painter Harold Baker, 53, stood at a computerized station recently while he watched the robots work inside a ventilated glass booth. Baker used to paint Corvettes by hand, using a spray gun attached to a hose.
He wore a respirator then and used fans to draw fumes away. But Baker believes he still inhaled a lot of paint fumes, and he worries about his health.
''We didn't know any better; nobody knew any better,'' he said. ''I'd much rather be out here watching them (the robots) do the work.''
Evaporation of solvents into the air from manufacturing and cleaning processes has been a major target of the federal Clean Air Act.
About 70 percent of part cleaning businesses have switched to ''aqueous,'' or water-based processes, said Joe McChesney, technical director for Detrex Corp.'s equipment division in Bowling Green.
The Michigan-based company is one of a handful of firms nationwide that specialize in making equipment to clean oil from metal parts.
McChesney noted solvents can be replaced in some cases: Some military aircraft, for example, are now being cleaned by a blast of baking soda and corn-cob grit instead of solventbased paint stripper.
But solvents are the only thing that can clean the thousands of microscopic tubes in kidney dialysis filters. And supply lines that feed oxygen to astronauts aboard the space station must be cleaned with solvents because water could allow bacteria to grow, McChesney said.
McChesney still believes that solvents clean best, and that they're safe when handled properly. But he's already preparing for the day when solvents will make up little of his business.
''We know the future is aqueous.''
PROBLEMS ARISE
Replacement solvents still pose dangers
Phasing out environmentally destructive chemicals has had an unintended consequence. People are sometimes getting sick from their replacements.
An example is the solvent nhexane, a powerful neurotoxin regaining popularity as a substitute for more heavily regulated chemicals.
The chemical has been known to cause peripheral nerve damage since 1964, when workers at a Japanese printing plant lost sensation in their hands and feet. Continued exposure can cause paralysis of the limbs.
Recent cases of n-hexane poisoning in this country were rare until doctors at the California Department of Health Services noticed a spate of worker exposures. The first was a young auto mechanic who arrived at a hospital emergency room in January 1997, unable to feel his arms or legs. He had lost so much motor control that he collapsed on the waitingroom floor.
Doctors determined the man, whom they declined to identify, was using six to 10 cans a day of an n-hexane-based aerosol brake cleaner at his job at a Bay Area automobile dealership.
The chemical is so toxic that damage can occur even when it is used according to OSHA regulations, said Will Forest, an associate toxicologist in the state health department's occupational health branch.
California physicians have confirmed at least six other cases of n-hexane-induced illness in various industries in the past three years.
''We get reports at least every other week of (more) workers,'' said Dr. Jim Cone, an occupational medicine physician at the California health department.
The chemical's use has jumped since the state recently cracked down on chlorinated solvents, such as trichlorethylene, which have been targeted as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
N-hexane offers a cheap, readily available alternative, and it is advertised as ''green'' and ''chlorine-free,'' attracting conscientious employers who think they are protecting the environment and their employees' health.
As a result, about 60 percent of California's 5,000 auto repair shops have turned to n-hexane, according to Mike Wilson, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who is researching the issue.
Said Forest, the toxicologist: ''Ironically, it's another situation where scrupulous attention to environmental risks has actually increased the risk to workers.''
HIGH-TECH RISK
Computer-chip industry grapples with solvents
Another industry's shift away from a hazardous solvent is attracting similar questions about worker health risks.
The semiconductor industry uses a variety of solvents, acids and other harsh chemicals to build the silicon chips used in computers and other devices such as cellular phones and televisions.
Until the mid-1990s, most chip manufacturers used solvents called ethylene glycol ethers to etch intricate patterns into materials deposited on the chips.
These solvents, once popular in products from window cleaners to linoleum strippers, were linked in the early 1980s to birth defects and spontaneous abortions in animal studies, prompting warnings by state and federal agencies in 1982 and 1983.
In 1989, the Semiconductor Industry Association agreed to sponsor a massive public health study at 15 California chip plants. The results, released in 1992, raised alarm about the relationship between chemical exposure and miscarriages.
''We found up to a doubling of risk, depending on the level of exposure,'' said Shanna H. Swan, a former California Department of Health Services researcher who now teaches at the University of Missouri.
After a 1992 study commissioned by IBM showed a 33 percent rate of miscarriages among 30 female employees, several manufacturers offered alternative jobs to concerned employees.
Employees began filing lawsuits against the industry. Some plaintiffs described how they would toil amid fumes that sometimes gave them nausea, rashes or headaches.
Former IBM employee Faye Calton, now a resident of Lexington, told USA Today in 1998 that her employer barred her from directly working with chemicals suspected of causing birth defects or miscarriages. But she said the fumes in her work space were still so heavy she could taste the chemicals.
Then she and her husband, who both worked at the plant in East Fishkill, N.Y., had a son who was born with extreme skeletal deformities.
Zachary Ruffing, now 15, has the IQ of a genius, according to his parents, but his bird-like deformities make it difficult to eat, see and breathe.
''Sometimes I think of Stephen Hawking, because sometimes (Zachary) says he'd like to be an astronomer,'' said Amanda Hawes, a San Jose, Calif., attorney who is representing about 200 plaintiffs in lawsuits against the semiconductor industry.
Zachary's case would have been the first to go to trial, but it was settled in February. The parties agreed to refrain from discussing the case beyond an official statement that reads, in part, ''IBM firmly believes, based upon state-of-the-art science, that it had no liability in this case and that it did not act wrongfully in this matter.''
Although the industry insists the health studies merely suggest a link that cannot be proved, most manufacturers have eliminated certain glycol ethers, according to the semiconductor association.
Some companies switched to chemical-free water-based processes; other manufacturers replaced solvents with related chemicals called propylene glycol ethers.
LaDou, a leading occupational health physician who has studied semiconductor workers, is not convinced that the substituted chemicals are safe either.
He challenges the industry to prove its health record has improved by conducting additional studies. ''If the problem is gone, let us do a study to recognize that fact,'' he said.
OSHA is also concerned. The agency announced plans last year to study the semiconductor industry's use of all solvents.
SMALL BUSINESSES
Nail salons among those with worker illness
Some believe the greatest danger may be at smaller and emerging industries.
Dr. Alan Ducatman, an occupational and environmental medicine specialist who chairs the department of community medicine at West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown, believes the greatest solvent exposure is occurring in largely unregulated industries, such as house painting crews, furniture stripping operations, automobile repair shops and nail salons.
''They are little ma and pa shops,'' said Ducatman, who has diagnosed about 100 railroad workers with solvent-induced brain damage.
Many of Raquel Sancho's clients work in these settings. As program director of the Santa Clara Center for Occupational Health in California, Sancho educates women, minorities and recent immigrants about health hazards in the workplace.
So many Vietnamese women developed respiratory infections, asthma and headaches while working in nail salons that Sancho helped develop a street theater outreach program to tell them about their rights.
''Their main concern is bread and butter,'' Sancho said. ''Health and safety is not an issue for them'' until they get sick.
On the other side of the country, Nhu-Ha Le, a chemical engineer in Wilmington, Del., was concerned about the same thing after her sister, NhuHong Le, suffered repeated respiratory infections, runny noses, coughing fits and irritability and lost her sense of smell working at her nail salon.
Le wanted to prevent nail technicians from breathing a cocktail of solvents like acetone, toluene and xylene, so she invented a ventilated manicure table.
Her sister still uses the table, saying it has greatly improved her health. But the invention didn't sell well, and Le eventually quit her side business.
Co-owner Herman Hopman, also of Wilmington, still markets a simpler ventilation table, but few seem interested.
''It's disappointing, needless to say,'' Hopman said. ''I think somebody (at OSHA) is sitting down on the job because I've talked to enough people with serious health problems (that) I know there is a serious problem out there.''
Staff writer James Bruggers contributed to this story.
source: http://www.courier-journal.com/cjextra/csx/day4/ke051601s23862.htm 15sep03
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