TESTIMONY: IBM TOXICS COULD'VE CAUSED ILLNESS
By Elise Ackerman
Mercury News
A respected epidemiologist testified Wednesday in the IBM toxics trial that exposure to chemicals used at the computer company's San Jose plant in the 1970s and 1980s could have caused cancer.
Two former IBM employees, Alida Hernandez and James Moore, allege that the company knowingly exposed them to cancer-causing chemicals. Hernandez has been treated for breast cancer and Moore has non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Invoking a provision of California workers' compensation law, the former employees contend IBM fraudulently concealed information that workplace chemicals were making them sick.
Citing numerous scientific studies, epidemiologist Richard Clapp testified Wednesday that exposure to mixed solvents ``does increase the risk or is a substantial contributing cause to breast cancer in humans.'' He also said exposure to trichloroethylene and isopropyl alcohol can contribute to or cause cancer.
A specialist in cancer epidemiology and a professor at Boston University, Clapp's past work has included identifying the cause of an outbreak of leukemia among children in Woburn, Mass., and cancer in Vietnam veterans.
When the IBM trial began in October, Clapp was expected to offer some of the most damaging testimony in the case against the computer giant.
In a declaration submitted to the court, Clapp said he had reviewed a computerized database of death certificates for more than 30,000 IBM employees who died between 1969 and 2000. Clapp called the results ``alarming,'' noting that IBM employees had died of cancers at significantly higher rates and at disproportionately younger ages compared with the general population.
Even before the jury was selected, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Robert Baines excluded testimony about the database, known as the corporate mortality file, deeming it irrelevant and prejudicial.
As the trial resumed Wednesday after the holiday break, Clapp focused on six studies that investigated causes of breast cancer and six that investigated causes of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Clapp told the jury that a family history of other types of lymphoma would not be considered a contributing factor. IBM has sought to link Moore's cancer with the illnesses of other family members.
IBM attorney Robert Weber is expected to begin his cross examination of Clapp today. ``None of this is generally accepted science,'' Weber said in an interview after court.
copyright - San Jose Mercury News - 2004
