Did Westinghouse Keep Mum On Pc Bs?

When the Environmental Protection Agency banned polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in 1979, it probably came too late for Richard K. Sluder of Bloomington, Ind. The former Westinghouse Electric Corp. worker blames his debilitating arthritis and memory loss on PCBs, which he says drenched him daily on the job for years. Sluder, 39, is a likely candidate to suffer some ill effects: At one point, his blood had the highest PCB concentration ever recorded in a human--3,450 parts per billion.

In a suit filed last March, Sluder and eight other Bloomington workers charge Monsanto Chemical Co., the sole U. S. producer of PCBs, and Westinghouse with fraud and battery. Sluder is one of roughly 1,000 claimants to file PCB-related personal-injury suits pending against Westinghouse. In many of those cases, Westinghouse has had the upper hand, since the scientific link between PCBs and human illness is unproven. But Sluder's suit comes at a time of mounting scientific evidence linking PCBs to cancer and other ailments. And the case is the first to charge that Westinghouse exposed its workers to chemicals it knew were unsafe. "We have documented evidence of exposure levels, which is unprecedented," says Sluder's lawyer, David S. McCrae. "Westinghouse knew these chemicals would poison the workers and cause death. But Westinghouse said nothing."