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Did Clean-Room Chemicals Cause Birth Defects?
KPHO-TV
Fri February 5, 2010
Area: Phoenix (Prescott)
PHOENIX, Arizona - The picture of Bob and Janice Numkena's wedding day is old and faded, but Bob's memory of the day is clear. From the beginning, they worked as a team. They didn't have a choice.
"I worked the day shift and my wife worked the night shift," Bob Numkena said, as he sat in his Tempe living room.
They worked for the same company and raised two daughters, achieving the American dream. Another picture of the family shows them smiling while on vacation. But it doesn't show the real life, day-in and day-out struggle that has been their reality.
Both of their daughters were born with severe birth defects. Angela, the youngest who is now 27, demands round-the-clock care. She suffers from Cerebral Palsy.
For the last eight years, Bob Numkena has cared for them on his own. Janice Numkena died in 2002, and since then, he has devoted everything he has to his girls. "I hate leaving them alone," he said.
Across town, Rosa and Henry Arballo are dealing with similar problems. Their son, Danny, was born with epilepsy as well as severe vision and speech problems.
Rosa Arballo remembers the first trip to the doctor after Danny was born 24 years ago.
"I said to him, 'What can I do? What can I do as a mom?' And he said, 'All you can do is love him,'" Arballo said.
Besides raising children with birth defects, the Arballos and the Numkenas have something else in common. Both moms worked for Motorola in so-called "clean rooms," where microchips are manufactured.
A 5 Investigates investigation identified dozens of families across the Valley that have children with severe birth defects. They all worked in clean rooms from the late-1970s through the late-1990s. They're starting to think one of the chemicals they were using caused the health problems their children are suffering from.
The chemical is called Ethylene Glycol Ether. It was commonly used in the chip manufacturing process until the mid-1990s. According to documents 5 Investigates obtained from lawsuits filed against another chip maker, IBM, the big chip making companies knew for years that there was a possible connection between Glycol Ether and the health of their employees' children.
Back in 1981, the company that made Glycol Ether, Union Carbide, issued a warning about possible miscarriages and birth defects. In 1982, the California Department of Health Services issued a Hazard Alert that said the chemical caused birth defects in test animals. Even the Semiconductor Industry Association issued a warning in 1982.
More warnings came out in 1987, 1989, and 1993. But experts tell us they believe the chemical was still used in the chip-making process well into the 1990s.
One former Intel employee who was aware of safety guidelines because of what he did within Intel factories told us he never saw a warning about birth defects passed on to employees.
"If I would have known that, I wouldn't be working with that group. I would have left the company," said the former employee, who asked to remain anonymous. He now has a daughter with birth defects.
Attorney Frank Verderame sat in his central Phoenix office last week, looking through lists of names. They were potential clients who had contacted his law firm after it ran a 30-second radio advertisement that gave a phone number to call if parents worked in clean rooms and had children with birth defects.
"These companies made billions of dollars from these chips," Verderame said. He is preparing to represent these families in court in lawsuits he plans to file against Intel, Motorola and other chip-manufacturing companies.
Raising a severely disabled child and caring for a disabled adult can cost anywhere from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. Verderame said right now, taxpayers and insurance companies are picking up the bill for most of these families. He believes it should be the chip makers.
"The people who profited from this wrongdoing should be the ones to pay to repair the problem, not the rest of society," Verderame said.
Lawmakers and the business community may disagree with Verderame. The semiconductor industry brings about $33 billion to the state every year. Arizona ranks third in the nation, as far as the number of people employed by the semiconductor industry.
"They employ about 23,000 jobs in Arizona (with) the majority of those right here in the valley," said David Drennon from the Arizona Department of Commerce.
Over the years, state leaders have offered the industry big incentives to build mammoth plants here. Environmentalists say it's been a raw deal.
"A lot of these places have come in under the guise of economic development, which sounds good on paper, but then they're gone and there's a toxic legacy left behind," said Steve Brittle of the environmental group Don't Waste Arizona.
Brittle believes there were safer alternatives to the chemicals these companies have used in the past.
5 Investigates found an advertisement dated 1984 for a product billed as a safer alternative to Ethylene Glycol Ether. Brittle said there are no laws that force companies to use the least toxic alternative chemicals.
Intel did not respond to questions.
Motorola responded to CBS's questions with an e-mail that states: "Motorola has not been in the semiconductor business for several years. When we were, we always strived to meet the highest safety standards."
The Semiconductor Industry Association responded to questions with a statement that said the group has a policy of not commenting on pending litigation. They also pointed to an information sheet that says most semiconductor manufacturers voluntarily stopped using Ethylene Glycol Ether sometime after 1989, but it did not specify which companies or when.
Back in Numkena's Tempe living room, the pieces of this puzzle are starting to come together. He wonders if he may someday get the answer to a question every parent of a child with birth defects asks: could this have been the cause?
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