Hinchey: Funding secured for IBM cancer study
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- August
- 10
Gannett News Service
Federal scientists will have money to proceed with a monumental study of cancer rates among 28,000 IBM Endicott employees that will advance science about chemical exposure, U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey said Thursday.
Hinchey, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said he has secured funding necessary for the National Institute of Occupational Health & Safety to start the $3.2 million study in the next fiscal year, which begins in October.
It would be the first comprehensive government study of cancer rates among employees in the circuit-board manufacturing industry, and is intended to address widespread questions about whether they bore a disproportionately high cancer risk.
IBM pledged to cooperate with the study. “We will pass along any information that is lawfully acceptable,� IBM spokes-man Ari Fishkind said. “We have cooperated with NIOSH in the past and that will always be the case.�
The study will be based largely on records dating to the early 1960s that document the IBM work force at the sprawling Endicott facility, now owned by Huron Real Estate Associates. They would be cross-referenced with cancer and death records kept by state and federal agencies, so researchers will be able to tell if a person who worked for the company for a given period developed cancer anytime after that.
This entry was posted
on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 5:26 pm by Alison Bert.
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