"We need a cancer study on the effects of chemicals in electronics manufacturing. There's never been a large, well-done study on cancer and semiconductor manufacturing, and I believe it's long overdue," said Dr. Robert Harrison, a clinical professor of medicine in the occupational-health department at the University of California at San Francisco.

Harrison criticized the Semiconductor Industry Association for taking too long to decide whether to conduct such a study, adding his voice to others leveling similar criticism. The SIA is currently doing a feasibility report, due early this year, on whether member companies have adequate data on hand to reliably conduct an epidemiological study. In October 2001, a panel of seven scientific advisers commissioned by the SIA recommended the feasibility study be done.

"I don't think we need more studies of the feasibility of feasibility studies. We have to do the study. I think there's plenty of data available," Harrison said.

Late last year, a medical toxicologist testifying in the same high-profile case also charged the SIA with dragging its feet. Chip makers "have banded together to obstruct research," Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum said in Santa Clara County Superior Court in late November, "but they ought to band together to discover and research the toxicity of the materials [they use]." Teitelbaum, a practicing toxicologist and occupational-medicine specialist for 35 years, said the SIA has been "in limbo" on the issue.

The SIA has defended its actions, stating that scientific studies will take time to do properly. "We're moving in that direction; it just takes longer than people would like," an SIA spokeswoman said. "Cancer is a pretty big issue and it takes time to get your arms around it. Another part of the problem is people don't want to divulge chemicals they are using because it's part of their secret recipe."

Teitelbaum acknowledged that chip makers are often unwilling to share information they believe is competitive about the chemicals they use, particularly in photoresist processes.

Both electronics companies and engineering schools need specialists who can provide perspective on the health implications of chemicals used in their processes, said Teitelbaum, who has acted as a consultant on chemical poisoning for the Food and Drug Administration. "The divide between what biologists know and what engineers know is great, and unless they work together you will have more issues like you have [in the IBM case]," he said.

Closely watched

The IBM case is being closely watched by electronics manufacturers concerned about the possible impact of its outcome. IBM is accused of deliberately withholding from two former workers at a disk-drive plant information about chemicals to which they may have been exposed in the 1970s and '80s. The plaintiffs later were diagnosed with cancer. The case began in November and is expected to last another three to five months.

Today's electronics manufacturing plants have made significant improvements in protecting workers from chemical exposure, but the industry needs to do more, Harrison said last week. "I think we have to come to terms with the effects of past exposures so we can learn from them to take action to protect workers now, depending on what those studies show," he said.

He noted that studies showing the dangers of glycol ethers got those chemicals removed from electronics manufacturing, and chip-making processes are much more automated today, further reducing the dangers of workplace exposure. At the same time, however, doctors are beginning to better understand the links between toxic chemicals and cancer, he added.

"There is increasing evidence linking cancer to chemical exposure in the workplace. As we do more studies the links are strengthening. The more we look, the more we find," he said.

Harrison discussed this link during the ongoing civil suit against IBM that was brought by two former workers.

Harrison testified that there was an 80 to 90 percent probability that former IBM worker James Moore's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was caused by exposure to toxic chemicals while working at IBM's Cottle Road disk-drive plant in San Jose from the 1960s to the 1980s. And he said there was a 70 to 80 percent probability the breast cancer of former IBM worker Alida Hernandez was similarly caused by exposure to toxic chemicals at work.

"One of the green lights that went on for me in this case is that we don't regulate workplace chemicals like we do environmental chemicals," Harrison said.

While cross-examining Harrison, an attorney for IBM noted that Hernandez and Moore had a number of cancer risk factors in their backgrounds including age, weight, family histories of cancer, smoking, drinking and other possible exposures to carcinogens. For example, Moore worked at a gas station at a time when gasoline contained 2 to 3 percent benzene, a carcinogen.

IBM's attorney also pointed out that several textbooks on cancer epidemiology and the Web site of the American Cancer Association make no mention of workplace chemical exposures as risk factors for cancer.

An attorney for Hernandez and Moore countered that those sources are not intended to reflect the latest thinking in occupational medicine.

Testimony in the trial was expected to continue this week.