IBM workers susceptible to cancer
By G. Dunkel
Workers in San Jose, Calif.--or, in some
cases, their survivors--have hired one of the top
epidemiologists in the country to analyze their claims that
they developed terminal cancers working for International
Business Machines in designing or producing microcomputer chips
and hard disks.
Dr. Richard Clapp, an associate professor at Boston
University's School of Public Health, has worked on analyzing
the risks at the Love Canal site near Buffalo, N.Y.; dioxin
contamination at Toms River, N.J., and Woburn, Mass; and the
effects of depleted uranium on Massachusetts veterans of the
first Gulf War.
His statistical analyses from IBM data show increased rates
of breast cancer, non-Hodgkins lymphoma and brain cancer among
IBM employees. These data also show that cancers appear to be
occurring in IBM workers earlier than the average U.S.
population.
IBM is not just a software giant, a major consulting firm
and a producer of computers ranging from PCs to giant
mainframes and including Unix- and GNU/Linux-based servers. It
is also a major manufacturer of computer chips for companies
like Apple, Boeing and itself. It has recently discontinued
making disk drives.
Workers in the "clean rooms" used to produce chips and disk
plates have to wear "bunny suits." These are head-to-heel
covers that protect the workers from dust and particles and
keep the chips from being ruined.
These suits filter the air. They do not protect the workers
from the powerful fumes from chemicals such as toluene,
cadmium, arsenic, benzene and trichloro ethylene,--all of which
are either known or suspected carcinogens. Nor can the suits
protect against the compounds created by combining these
chemicals together, the dangers of which have never been
scientifically studied.
Nearly 300,000 workers in the United States work in plants
with "clean rooms." About one-quarter of them come into contact
with these dangerous chemicals. Worldwide, about a million
people work in such plants, many of them owned by big U.S.
corporations such as Motorola and Intel. (Figures from Mother
Jones, March/April 2002.)
Microchips are used in computers, but are also in hundreds
of other products like cell phones and automobiles.
Besides the lawsuits in California, hundreds of people in
New York and Minne sota who have or had jobs in "clean rooms"
have sued IBM as individuals or groups. Since they are not
represented by a union--which IBM has spent decades and big
bucks avoiding--they have to take on this multi-billion,
multinational corporation on their own.
IBM is apparently relying on its reputation as a safe
company that protected its employees, emphasized workplace
safety and went out of its way to protect its employees. The
company is vigorously defending itself against the charges.
But the length of time IBM and the other large chip
manufacturers took in cleaning up their plants, and the fact
that they made sure to do so before the cases came to trial,
indicate that IBM knowingly disregarded workers' health and
safety to make more money.
Reprinted from the Sept. 18, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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