Cancer Cases Cast Pall Over High-Tech Jobs
Lee Leth first felt the cancer as an ache in his back while pulling roots in the yard. The disease has wasted away part of his spine, shrinking him six inches and painfully compressing his organs.
Linda Foutche grew concerned when a kitten scratched her chin and the wound would not stop bleeding. Her doctor’s diagnosis: a rare skin tumor.
How Leth, Foutche and dozens of others got cancer hangs like a cloud over the chemical-intensive industries of Silicon Valley. And, because of high tech’s reach, the prospect that workers risk cancer has global health implications.
A cluster of cancers has been reported among semiconductor workers in Scotland. Concerns also have been raised in Asia, where manufacturing technology is often older, government regulation looser.
In the United States, the industry has refused to cooperate with the Environmental Protection Agency in studying whether electronics workers in California have higher rates of cancer and birth defects than the public.
“There is no scientific basis to justify a study,” said Lee Neal, health and safety director for the Semiconductor Industry Assn. “We use chemicals in work environments two to three times cleaner than the typical operating room.”
Yet a growing chorus of scientists is urging the industry to participate.
“Without that, you are defenseless,” Patricia Buffler, former dean of public health at UC Berkeley, pointedly told a recent conference of industry health officials in Dallas.
An estimated 45,000 U.S. workers labor in “fabs”: high-tech factories that use hundreds of hazardous chemicals in a manufacturing process that few government safety regulators understand.
Among those left to wonder about a possible cancer link is Dr. Steven Scates, Leth’s oncologist. Scates said he has seen a half-dozen IBM workers with similar disorders--rare malignancies in which white blood cells multiply uncontrolled.
Like Leth, all worked at a plant in San Jose that builds computer disks. Scates has been unable to find any other explanation.
“I hope it doesn’t turn out that [IBM] exposed a lot of people to something bad,” Scates said. “But, without a legitimate study, I don’t see how you can answer that.”
The issue may be resolved in court.
In upstate New York and in Silicon Valley, at least 128 employees and surviving relatives have filed lawsuits against IBM and its chemical suppliers. Leth and Foutche are among those suing.
IBM spokeswoman Tara Sexton said: “We do not believe that any of these illnesses was caused by anything associated with work at IBM.”
‘I Didn’t Understand the Power of Pain’
From 1969 to 1972, Leth’s job as an IBM engineer involved working with machines that chemically coat aluminum plates to make computer disks. Leth got chemicals on his clothes as he crawled around installing monitoring devices.
“On a few occasions, my wife noticed that some of the acid had eaten my shirts,” Leth recalled. “You definitely had a smell of chemicals. It made you somewhat nauseous.”
Most occupational cancers result from long-term, low-level exposure and can take decades to appear.
Leth has multiple myeloma, usually fatal. Among fellow patients, he is known as a gentleman who looks out for others. At 56, he is waging a gritty struggle.
He was diagnosed almost four years ago. Only one-fifth of myeloma patients survive that long. “There’s a dogmatic, keep-plugging attitude inside me,” Leth said.
Suspected causes of multiple myeloma include viral infection, radiation and chemical exposure. A 1992 medical journal lists epichlorohydrin, a chemical Leth worked with, as a risk factor. Epichlorohydrin is classified as a carcinogen in California.
As abnormal white blood cells grow in the bone marrow of a patient, healthy bone is destroyed. Parts of the spine collapse, sending searing pain into the legs.
Leth walks stiffly, a cane in each hand. He refuses a wheelchair because he wants to keep walking.
“I didn’t understand the power of pain,” he said.
“As an engineer,” he said, “I can’t say I’m 99% sure” that exposure on the job caused the cancer. “But I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t have cancer in my family. What other factor could have contributed to this thing?”
Government workplace safety and environmental regulators have no answer. They disagree on whether there is even a problem.
“I don’t want to make a blanket statement, but we haven’t found a problem with routine, day-in, day-out exposure,” said Richard Fairfax, acting director of enforcement for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Some occupational health experts see possible flaws in OSHA’s monitoring. No agency measures the overall level of airborne chemicals in the work area.
“You could have 50 different chemicals and high total fumes, but each of those chemicals could be below the level OSHA would respond to,” said Dr. Joe Ladou, an occupational health specialist at UC San Francisco.
The EPA is more inclined than OSHA to suspect a problem. The agency offered $100,000 for the cancer study being blocked by the industry.
“Generally, this industry is a priority area for us,” said Lynn Goldman, EPA assistant administrator for toxics. “We are aware of chemicals used in the industry that are known to have either cancer or reproductive health problems.”
Among the known human carcinogens are arsenic, chromium and nickel.
In the late 1980s, amid concerns about workers having miscarriages, the industry voluntarily phased out chemicals that were implicated in two major studies.
Scientists who participated in those studies, financed by the industry, say that companies did not always oppose research. The industry counters that evidence for a miscarriage problem then was stronger than the case about cancer now.
‘Before, I Was Healthy as a Horse’
From 1984 through the end of 1986, Foutche operated a “photoresist” machine, applying chemicals to silicon wafers to make computer chips. She worked in a so-called clean room at IBM, wearing a protective “bunny suit” that covered her from head to foot.
Unlike Leth, she does not have a scientific background and cannot name the chemicals she used.
“The bottles just had a skull and crossbones on them,” Foutche said.
Sometimes the machine would sputter, splashing chemicals on her. Part of her job involved cleaning the machine with rags.
“I had big burn marks on my skin,” Foutche said. “It would go through everything. You’d wash your clothes and they’d be eaten away.”
Foutche soon started having breathing problems. Labor Department data show that people who make computer chips and disk drives have higher rates of respiratory conditions caused by toxic agents.
Foutche became sterile in her 30s.
“There went my future,” said Foutche, childless at 50 and recently married to her longtime boyfriend.
Last fall, she was bottle-feeding a kitten when it scratched her under her lip. The scratch kept bleeding. Doctors found an extremely rare skin cancer, microcystic adnexal carcinoma. It has no known cause.
“When I went to the doctor, he asked: ‘Did you work in chemicals? Because this is not sun damage.’ ”
Doctors recently found another tumor in Foutche’s neck.
Once, sports were a big part of Foutche’s life. She played semi-pro tennis, competed on an outrigger canoe team and played women’s softball for IBM. But because of chronic breathing problems, she retired on disability in 1990.
“Before, I was healthy as a horse,” Foutche said. “I don’t pick up a tennis racket anymore without having to get oxygen.”
Foutche and Leth both maintain that their primary concern is to improve working conditions in the industry.
Leth insisted that he is not angry at IBM.
“They are very conscientious people, focused on their jobs,” he said. “It’s this area of the human element that was being ignored.”
Foutche feels betrayed.
“I thought IBM would take care of you,” she said.
While the industry maintains that there is no problem, individual companies have been quietly taking steps to better regulate the use of chemicals. Newer manufacturing methods are more automated, reducing exposure. And companies have set up chemical monitoring programs.
At Intel Corp., medical staffers participate on equal footing with engineers in a regular review of chemicals. One goal is to find substitutes for carcinogens.
However, Intel, like the rest of the industry, is opposed to a cancer study. Dr. Michael Fischman, the company’s medical director, said that it is “a tough question.”
There are many alternatives for protecting workers, Fischman said, including tighter engineering and stricter safety rules. But despite the industry’s opposition, he does not rule out a cancer study.
“It’s clearly in our interest to do the right thing,” Fischman said. “But what the right thing is, is not exactly clear.”
