GARDEN GROVE : No ‘Cancer Cluster’ at Bell, Study Says

A health expert who analyzed information from more than two years of environmental investigations at a Pacific Bell building where 13 employees received diagnoses of cancer has concluded that the cases are not linked to the environment and do not represent a workplace “cancer cluster.”

Dr. Howard Frumkin, director of the division of environmental and occupational health at Emory University in Atlanta, said in a report that “thorough, negative environmental investigations” formed a basis for concluding that the building’s environment was not responsible for an outbreak of cancer.

The variety of cancers among the Pacific Bell workers who worked in an office basement and the short latency periods of their cases support his conclusions, wrote Frumkin, who was retained by Pacific Bell on the advice of the California Department of Health.

Frumkin could not be reached for comment Friday, but a Pacific Bell official said the short latency period indicates that the 13 employees had not worked long enough in the basement to have been exposed to carcinogens that would have caused their illnesses.

Frumkin also said in his report that the types of cancer reported between 1984 and 1991 in the basement office are common and that several of the varieties have not been linked to environmental or occupational causes.

Eleven of the cancer patients were women. Four had breast cancer, three had lung cancer, and there was one case each of thyroid cancer, cervical cancer, melanoma and uterine cancer.

One of the men had lung cancer and the other testicular cancer. Four of the patients have died, four of them are still working and five have retired, officials said.

Frumkin’s analysis of the building at 13062 Euclid Ave. includes tests for exposure to workplace air, electromagnetic fields, radon, tap water, general environmental hazards and soil sampling.

Linda Bonniksen, a Pacific Bell spokeswoman, said that the company retained Frumkin to obtain an impartial opinion of the previous investigations.

“We wanted to make sure there are no safety risks and provide a good database to let employees make up their own mind” about the building’s safety, she said.

But Judy Parker, a breast cancer patient who worked in the basement office in the data processing department for about six years said she still believes “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that there was something in the area that caused cancer.

She said the basement office, which was vacated last July, has been modified and that it may not have the same conditions now as before.

Frumkin did not recommend further environmental studies at the facility, but he did say that routine environmental monitoring should continue.

He also suggested that the company identify all employees who worked in the Euclid Avenue office since 1955 and document the incidence of cancer.

Company officials, however, said that records are destroyed 10 years after employees depart.