No Links to Cancer Found in PacBell Tests

New tests at a Pacific Bell facility have found no signs that electromagnetic fields, or on-site soil or water contamination caused a puzzling string of cancers during the past decade among at least a dozen workers in the building’s basement.

But the studies, released Friday by company officials, did little to assuage the concerns of some employees in the building, who remain convinced that something in the structure triggered the illnesses and might continue to threaten workers.

The study of electromagnetic fields at the Euclid Avenue office found radiation levels about the same as those in the average household and “well within” acceptable guidelines established by national and international experts.

A separate investigation determined that there is no reason to suspect that soil or water quality at the building has been impaired by the Pacific Bell operation.

The study by Los Angeles-based Forensic Analytical Specialties Inc. found, however, that 13 leaking underground storage tanks and five suspected hazardous-waste sites nearby might have effected soil or ground-water quality.

Pacific Bell officials say they will hire a firm to collect soil samples to determine if there are any problems. Meanwhile, an analysis of air quality in the building’s ventilation systems is already under way.

“We want to assure employees that everything that can be done will be done,” said Linda Bonniksen, a Pacific Bell spokeswoman. “I think cancer is very frightening, and its origins very complex. When you’re facing that type of challenge to your health, you want answers. And sometimes there just may not be any answers.”

The various findings and promises of further investigations have not mollified some employees at the facility, who contend that an independent probe is needed to augment the existing studies.

Those have been done predominantly by firms hired by Pacific Bell. Forensic Analytical Specialties was paid $5,000. Bellcore, a research arm of Bell Communications, received $40,000 for its electromagnetic study.

“The name of the game for Pacific Bell is to protect their own interests,” said Judy Parker, one of the employees at the building who has contracted cancer. “They could lose a lot. I guess you can’t expect them to be in this for the interest of the people who got sick.”

Recently, the concerns of employees were fanned by the death of a colleague. Morene Empting, whose condition was diagnosed as lung cancer in 1988 after working in the building, succumbed to her illness last Saturday.

Concern has centered around the facility’s basement, which housed about 65 employees in a carpeted office space separated by a wood-frame wall from a room containing batteries and other electrical equipment needed to run the operation in case of a power failure.

Basement employees also handled calling-card functions and assigned new phone listings, work that often put them in close contact with video display terminals.

Since 1984, 12 employees who did stints in the basement have contracted breast, lung, thyroid and several other types of cancer. Four have died. By contrast, only two of the more than 230 workers on the building’s upper two floors have been hit by the disease.

Despite the troubling flurry of illnesses, many employees remained in the basement office space until last month, when the company held a vote of the approximately 15 workers who had not already moved out. They decided to relocate in offices on the floors above.

In recent years, Pacific Bell has called in various environmental health officials to investigate the situation. Studies have looked at air, water, radon and asbestos pollution, but have discovered nothing peculiar. Company officials remain baffled, and have no ready explanation what might be causing the illnesses.

Parker suggested that the various studies might be failing to come up with any firm conclusions because conditions in the building have changed in recent years. The office space has been remodeled and the ventilation ductwork was rearranged. In addition, restrictions on cigarette smoking have only gone into effect in recent years.

“A lot has changed,” Parker said. “One of the biggest problems with the air down in the basement used to be the fact that carbon monoxide was being sucked in through intake air vents from the parking lot.”

Bonniksen said Pacific Bell officials remain cognizant of such concerns, but have tried to investigate all leads.

“She has a very valid point,” Bonniksen said. “It’s very, very difficult to test at the exact moment that an employee may have noticed something or felt concerned about something.”

But company officials remain confident that the studies are on target and have not been colored because Pacific Bell is financing the work. A deliberate attempt to dabble with results would place an environmental health firm in a precarious legal situation, Bonniksen said.

Meanwhile, UC Irvine’s Cancer Surveillance Program is conducting research to determine if the cancers have a common cause. Pacific Bell’s health service department is looking into any links between family histories, lifestyles and the onset of cancer among the workers.

All the information will be compiled for review by the state Department of Health Services, which will recommend any further study that might be necessary, Bonniksen said.