With 13th Cancer Case, Pacific Bell Relocates Rest of Employees

One day after a 13th worker was found to have cancer, Pacific Bell officials Thursday began moving all employees out of their basement workstations and into temporary quarters in the building’s upper floors.

“The common link has been in the basement,” Pacific Bell spokesman Mike Runzler said after the remaining 15 basement workers asked to be moved upstairs.

The worker who received a diagnosis of breast cancer Wednesday had worked in the basement for eight years before being moved in February to an upper floor.

Runzler said a dozen other workers have contracted various forms of cancer, including breast and lung cancer, after having worked in the basement, where employees operated the company’s calling-card functions and assigned new phone listings.

The 24-year-old building has undergone previous tests, but no evidence linking the basement with the illnesses has been found, Runzler said.

Researchers were back in the building Thursday after the remaining employees asked to be moved.

Mike Jungers, operator services manager, said researchers from Bellcore, an investigative arm of the Bell Systems, were searching for abnormal levels of electromagnetic fields.

A report of their findings is expected to be released today, but Jungers said preliminary results showed no evidence of danger. A further statement about the building is expected to be made at 9:30 a.m. today in a press briefing.

Another part of Thursday’s investigation included five basement workers who were asked to take magnetic-field meters home with them to determine whether a link to the diseases could be found outside the building.

Jungers said that the meter readings will be examined when the employees return today and that none of the five selected at random to participate are workers with cancer diagnoses.

Runzler said more testing is scheduled for the basement, but he did not know what kinds of research will take place.

In the past year, Runzler confirmed, the company has spent $500,000 to remodel the basement for the workers. He also said workers had been given a choice of whether to continue working in the basement or move to upper floors.

Over the past several months, Jungers said, 50 people who once worked in the basement have moved to upper floors.