Children of Boeing workers suffer consequences of toxic exposure

Debbie Ulrich worked as an etched circuit board fabricator at Boeing’s electronics manufacturing facility in Seattle while she was pregnant with her daughter Marie Riley in 1980.

Riley, now 42, was born with tetralogy of Fallot, a rare congenital heart condition caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth, requiring multiple open-heart surgeries throughout her life.

Ulrich worked around toxic fumes in the manufacturing area of the Boeing plant without personal protective equipment other than nylon gloves. She regularly used a degreaser that heated chemical solvents, creating hot trichloroethylene vapors to clean circuit boards. Trichloroethylene, or TCE for short, has been repeatedly linked to congenital cardiac defects. Ulrich also cooked chemical-laden film onto copper panels and cleaned soldered boards by dipping them into industrial solvents. And no training or safety programs existed to protect workers' health from hazardous materials, except for radiation.

Riley filed one of four lawsuits against Boeing, the world’s largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners, space and security systems, accusing it of endangering employees, leading to birth defects in their children. Three of these matters have been resolved.

The attorney representing Riley and the plaintiffs in the other suits, Michael Connett, a partner with Dallas-based Waters, Kraus & Paul, warned that thousands of Boeing employees who work with chemicals, solvents and heavy metals, including mechanics and painters, are still regularly exposed at facilities across the country.

“Hazardous conditions still exist and workers continue to be exposed to heavy metals and solvents,” Connett said.

For example, some areas of the Everett, Washington, plant have hexavalent chromium levels in the air that far exceed regulatory limits, he said. Also, company documents confirm that chemical-induced injuries are still routinely reported at Boeing facilities, with medical interventions for chemical exposure incidents occurring on an almost weekly basis at the Everett facility.

Boeing has many other manufacturing facilities throughout the United States, including in Auburn and Renton, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Long Beach, California; and Wichita, Kansas.

Company documents show that Boeing was aware, as far back as the 1970s, of the reproductive danger posed to its workforce. But the company failed to adequately warn its workers and often did not provide them with adequate protective gear.

About a year before Ulrich became pregnant with Riley, Boeing’s top doctor warned the company’s leaders that “uncontrolled exposures of employees to hazardous materials is occurring” and “required medical surveillance and examinations are not being conducted.”

The following year, Dr. Barry Dunphy raised additional concerns that “occupational illness among employees is increasingly apparent” and that the effects of chemical exposures in the Boeing workplace include “fetal abnormalities, stillbirth, life-long chronic illness, cancer and death.”

Connett attributes his clients’ injuries to exposure to toxins from two chemical classes: heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and chromium and organic solvents including toluene, xylene, petroleum distillates, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), methyl propyl ketone (MPK), and trichloroethylene (TCE). The plaintiffs have undergone genetic testing and consulted geneticists, Connett said.

“Boeing has consistently failed to disclose these risks, leaving its workers and their families in the dark about a hazard that can inflict permanent and catastrophic harm,” Connett said. “Workers deserve to be told about the hazards of the chemicals they work with. Boeing failed its legal and moral responsibility to inform these workers.”