[CPEO-BIF] TCE health effects

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Widely used chemical might have cancer link

By Jim Morris
Boston Globe Correspondent 
January 11, 2005

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- Until fall 2003, workers in a Wilkes-Barre
special-education school district gave little thought to the chemical
they knew only as deglazing solvent.

Used to clean ink from two printing presses in the district's main
administration building, the solvent routinely spilled onto the carpet.
Its stench drifted through the air ducts. Still, it seemed nothing more
than an annoyance -- until Antoinette Dominick was diagnosed with cancer.

Dominick is among roughly two dozen employees of Luzerne Intermediate
Unit 18 who have been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, lupus, or
other diseases linked by studies to trichloroethylene -- or TCE -- the
solvent whose vapors permeated the three-story building. Although about
200 people worked in the building over three decades, most who became
seriously ill were long-time employees, said Sandy Ostrowski, president
of the Educational Support Personnel Association, a local union. For
this reason, suspicion fell on TCE, which can be harmful when inhaled or ingested.

Known for its metal-cleaning properties, TCE has been in American
commerce for more than 80 years. For a long time, waste TCE was dumped
indiscriminately; as a result, the solvent invaded wells in places like
Woburn, Mass., where it was implicated in a childhood cancer cluster
that inspired the book and movie, "A Civil Action." A settlement was
reached in a lawsuit against one of the polluters before researchers
could determine whether TCE had caused the cancers.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2005/01/11/widely_used_chemical_might_have_cancer_link

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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