KATU, a major Portland Oregon TV station, is running a story on the internet that links Intel's massive computer chip production facilities in Oregon to large increases in the horrific crippling ailment of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).
http://www.katu.com/...
I live in Washington County, a suburban area just west of Portland Oregon. Just 2.4 miles from my house, Intel operates a multi-square mile complex of a dozen facilities that utilizes millions of pounds of virulently toxic chemicals.
Intel, the worldwide computer manufacturer, dominates Washington County and has become the State's largest employer, with about 17,500 workers at wages averaging over $100,000/year. Intel also just finished building a $3 billion computer chip plant with an all union construction work force. Intel is here because of Oregon's cheap power, cheap water, and tax breaks worth billions.
But are the jobs worth a doubling of the rate of ALS? And before we get to that quandry, We must decide: Is KATU's story junk science, or the uncovering of the methodical poisoning of a community?
I am one of Intel's most strident local critics. I bitterly resent Intel's needless usage and air emissions of hundreds of virulently toxic and explosive chemicals. If Intel's hydrofluoric acid chemical storage tanks failed, hundreds of workers and nearby residents would die.
But I strongly doubt KATU's story linking Intel to increased rates of ALS. I sure hope KATU is wrong. ALS is an hideous ailment that comes on qucikly with little warning, One day you feel weak. Soon you may be unable to control any of your arm and leg muscles. Then your chest muscles may fail, you will have trouble breathing, and within 5 years you will probably die. Stephen Hawking has it. There's no cure.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/...
According to KATU, Intel set up its massive computer chip manufacturing plants in Oregon (called Fabs) in the 1990s and added the "Fab 20" plant in 1996. The very next year, Statewide ALS deaths jumped 28% to 1.8 per 100,000 persons.
Intel added the D1D plant in 2003. That same year Oregon's ALS death rate jumped to 3.2 per 100,000. In 2012 the Oregon death rate from ALS was 3.3 per 100,000.
According to KATU, a chart of Intel's worldwide sales matched the rises and falls in Oregon's death rates from ALS. ALS deaths in Washington and nearby Multnomah County, 15 miles to the east, reached a new high in 2012. And when Fab 20 shut down, ALS deaths dropped.
KATU cited a daughter of an Intel worker who had ALS. She claims (citing, in part, internet sources) that half a dozen Intel workers have caught ALS within the last 20 years.
KATU provides no evidence that anything Intel did could actually have caused ALS. They did cite the author of a study on IBM workers during 1969-2001 that showed they had increased cancer rates, probably from toxic exposures. He said the KATU data was important and worthy of more study.
Scientists currently conclude, according to Wiki and other sources, that genetics is linked to about 10% of ALS cases. Other causes are essentially unknown.
Certainly KATU presented no evidence of a chemical exposure link to ALS. While KATU purports to link Intel's worldwide sales' ups and downs to the Oregon ALS death rate, there's no evidence of a corresponding link between activities at Intel's Oregon facilities and the ALS rates.
KATU claims the start up and shut down of the Fab 20 plant corresponds to the local ALS death rates. That may be true, but it could also be coincidental. The truth is that Intel's air pollution rates, which are linked to its chemical usage, actually dropped 25% within two years of Fab 20's start-up. There is typically a 2-5 year lag between ALS' infliction and its victim's deaths. Yet KATU claims ALS death rates rose immediately upon FAB 20 starting production.
Likewise regarding KATU's linking of the 2003 startup of the D1D fab plant with increased statewide ALS deaths. Intel did not increase its air pollution prior to, or after the D1D start-up; its chemical emissions actually fell by 60% from 1998 to 2009.
KATU's implicit finding is that Intel's chemical exposures to its workers, and its air emissions, must be causing ALS. How else would the statewide occurrence of ALS correspond to Intel's production, if not than from toxic air pollution?
But the facts are that even while Intel's production has skyrocketed, its chemical usage and emissions have actually fallen drastically.
I personally and recently looked through tens of thousands of pages of Intel's filings with local environmental agencies, as I prepared my own criticisms of intel's air permits.
KATU was wrong to claim Intel began Fab production in Oregon in the 1990s. Intel actually began operating Fab plants in Oregon in 1975.
Their air pollution, caused mostly from evaporation of solvents utilized to clean off their computer chips, probably peaked in 1985 at 169 tons per year of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), fully 12 years before KATU's found increases in the ALS death rate. By 2011. Intel's VOC air emissions were down about 80% to 35 tons/year. (Pre-1978 air emissions records are sketchy.)
Since then, Intel's air pollution fell rapidly, caused by its reduced chemical usage and improved air pollution controls.
If there is truly a link between Intel's chemical usage and emissions, ALS rates should have been skyrocketing, beginning in the 1970s through 1985, when Intel's air pollution peaked.
While Intel's worldwide production has increased since 1995, in a rough correspondence with Oregon's increasing ALS death rates, Intel's actual air pollution in Oregon has fallen by about 60% since 1995, at a time when Oregon's ALS death rate has doubled.
Furthermore, while KATU touted the rising ALS death rates in Washington and Multnomah counties, In 1996-7, Those counties which are closest to Intel actually had some of the lowest ALS death rates in the entire state.
https://public.health.oregon.gov/...
In the coming months, I'll be one of the loudest voices demanding that Intel cut its toxic air pollution and chemical use. I'll be demanding Intel respond to the ALS assertions.
But as of this moment, KATU's claims seem poorly supported and unworthy of publication.
I'm going to take a walk and get some fresh (if Intel-tainted) fresh air, and will respond to comments in a little while.