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Study of railroaders shows solvents cause brain damage
CSX says there's no "credible and conclusive scientific basis" to support claims
CUMBERLAND, Md. — A study of railroad workers in Cumberland and Huntington, W.Va., has documented that cleaning solvents can cause brain damage.
Researchers from West Virginia University, the University of Pittsburgh and Johns Hopkins University collaborated in the study through funding from the federal government.
They sought funding after numerous railroad workers with the same symptoms began showing up in the researchers’ clinics, according to lead author Marc Haut, a professor in the departments of behavioral medicine and psychiatry, neurology and radiology at the WVU School of Medicine.
“We were able to identify a change to the structure of the brain,” Haut said of the study, adding their findings included a correlation between brain loss and workers’ performance on tests that evaluated processing speed, attention and concentration.
Results of the study were announced by The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky., after the report was published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine this summer.
In a 10-month investigation in 2000 and 2001, the Courier-Journal learned that more than 600 U.S. railroad employees had been diagnosed with similar symptoms after spending years in workplaces where solvents were widely used with little or no protection. The newspaper found that CSX, the railroad company with the largest number of claims, had paid out nearly $35 million to more than 460 current or former workers diagnosed with brain damage.
CSX has both won and lost jury verdicts in chemical exposure cases that have gone to trial. It has argued that its workers’ problems could be explained by other factors, such as drinking alcohol, side effects from prescribed medication, or illnesses such as depression or diabetes.
“Our position has been and continues to be that there is no credible and conclusive scientific basis to support claims that solvents which haven’t been used for more than 20 years caused medical problems for our employees,” said Bob Sullivan, spokesman for CSX.
“Our employees are our most valuable assets and we are committed to protecting their health in every way possible.”
The report is connected with the nation’s first large independently funded study that seeks to explain how railroad workers have been affected by solvents. It involved 37 workers and 37 controls, according to Haut, who did not have immediate information on how many of those workers came from the Cumberland shop. Subjects participated for about eight hours per day in the study, which was funded for four years.
Workers had to have a minimum of 10 years’ exposure to solvents to be considered. The average exposure was 24.3 years.
“They all had complaints of changes with their thinking such as problems with attention, concentration and short-term memory,” Haut said.
“I am not sure if CSX was aware of individuals who were participating at the time of their participation. Some of the subjects had retired or were disabled and no longer working, but a few were still working for CSX.”
The study bolsters evidence that degreasers can damage the brain and lends more credibility to claims by hundreds of railroad workers diagnosed with brain damage after cleaning locomotives with solvents from the 1950s through the early 1990s.
Railroads began phasing the chemicals out of their shops in the early 1990s.
Tai Shadrick writes for the Cumberland (Md.) Times-News. The Associated Press contributed to this article.
