by Doug Millison for SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Surprise! A study commissioned by IBM finds no increased cancer risk for employees in a Silicon Valley plant and two others.

Therese Poletti reports in the San Jose Mercury News that the IBM study seeks to reassure 126,000 employees at East Fishkill, New York; Burlington, Vermont; and San Jose, California.

Big Blue commissioned the study in 2000 when it was "facing lawsuits by former employees who alleged they developed cancer because of exposure to toxic chemicals while working at the company's plants," Poletti writes, noting that the study "has not yet been published by a peer-reviewed scientific journal."

Poletti quotes Joe LaDou, director of the International Center for Occupational Medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, who questions the methodology of the IBM study: "It is not acceptable science but it is often done by industry-supported researchers, and sometimes even by governmental agencies.''

Over the years, a bevy of experts and activist groups have warned that employees at chip factories and other manufacturing facilities in Silicon Valley face health risks from the toxic chemicals at the workplace. Leaks of these chemicals have poisoned ground water, too, threatening Silicon Valley residents who choose not to purchase bottled water for drinking and cooking.

Poletti notes that "In March, IBM settled 50 other suits filed by former San Jose workers," and that "The company also has settled two birth-defects cases in New York state. About 110 cases still are pending in New York."

Links:

IBM says cancer risk not greater by Therese Poletti, San Jose Mercury News, 5 November 2004

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition , activist and watchdog organization

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