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from the never-met-a-problem-we-couldn't-solve-by-outsourcing dept.
Results in epidemiology often are equivocal, and money can cloud science (see: tobacco companies vs. cancer researchers). Clear-cut cases are rare. Yet just such a case showed up one day in 1984 in the office of Harris Pastides, a recently appointed associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
A graduate student named James Stewart, who was working his way through school as a health and safety officer at Digital Equipment Corp., told Pastides there had been a number of miscarriages at the company's semiconductor plant in nearby Hudson, Mass. Women, especially of childbearing age, filled an estimated 68 percent of the U.S. tech industry's production jobs, and Stewart knew something few outsiders did: Making computer chips involved hundreds of chemicals. The women on the production line worked in so-called cleanrooms and wore protective suits, but that was for the chips' protection, not theirs. The women were exposed to, and in some cases directly touched, chemicals that included reproductive toxins, mutagens, and carcinogens. Reproductive dangers are among the most serious concerns in occupational health, because workers' unborn children can suffer birth defects or childhood diseases, and also because reproductive issues can be sentinels for disorders, especially cancer, that don't show up in the workers themselves until long after exposure.
Digital Equipment agreed to pay for a study, and Pastides, an expert in disease clusters, designed and conducted it. Data collection was finished in late 1986, and the results were shocking: Women at the plant had miscarriages at twice the expected rate. In November, the company disclosed the findings to employees and the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group, and then went public. Pastides and his colleagues were heralded as heroes by some and vilified by others, especially in the industry.
As the effects of the chemicals used in chip manufacturing became known, production was shifted to South Korea where the problems continued.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:16AM (6 children)
The problem with us, humans, is we're a sack of chemicals [xkcd.com]
Some substances will undo as horribly [wikipedia.org], in quantities as low as 0.1mL [wikipedia.org] or 1.8mg [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:26AM
And some substances will do pretty gud in as little as 100 µg [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:37AM (3 children)
Karen Wetterhahn died of dimethylmercury poisoning while happening to be female so obviously, "Dartmouth College has since established an award in Wetterhahn's name to encourage other women to pursue careers in science."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @03:48AM
What other better use for women in science than for decontamination purposes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @05:32AM
Ah, important safety tip: transition to living as a man before handling dimethylmercury. Once a procedure requiring dimethylmercury has concluded, it's safe to transition back to living as a woman.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 18 2017, @06:35AM
Oh I see the problem, there wasn't a rich white dude to pay for the award so it is obviously just another propaganda piece in the feminist war of persecution. Woe is the lowly male, left to impotently release his anger unto the abyss that we call "the internet" booweeoooweeoo
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday June 18 2017, @06:11PM
The problem with Randall Munroe is that he's a sanctimonious sack of shit. [xkcd.com]