Amoco hit with new lawsuit by tumor victims
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
December 14, 1998
Amoco Corp. has been hit with a new lawsuit claiming six former or current
workers developed head tumors because of poor ventilation and lax safety
practices at a suburban research center plagued by a cluster of deadly brain
cancer cases.
The lawsuit was filed Friday
in Cook County Circuit Court by the lawyer son of a researcher at the
Naperville facility who died of a brain tumor.
The plaintiffs contend that ventilation was ineffective or nonexistent in parts
of the building where researchers used toxic chemicals, that unsafe work
practices brought researchers into
direct contact with toxic chemicals and that the company was slow to act on
complaints about chemical exposure. It also contends the employees were in
contact with radiation used at the center.
Amoco spokesman Scott Dean said Monday he could not comment on the lawsuit.
Amoco has funded a two-year investigation of the cases by health experts from
the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Johns Hopkins University. The
company said in October that the investigators increasingly suspect chemicals
used at the center are tied to the brain tumors and hope to solve the puzzle
early next year.
"It's not clear still if there is a work relationship," Dean said.
"It could still end up being something they can't pin any
cause on."
Since 1982, 20
cases of head tumors have been identified among current or former employees, 13
of them benign. But seven have been a deadly form of
cancer known as glioma, and four of those victims have died. Six of the
cancer victims worked in the same wing of the complex - Building 503 - and five of
them worked on the same
floor, which was closed in 1996.
Three lawsuits are pending against the company by tumor victims or their
families.
Friday's lawsuit was filed by Marios N. Karayannis, whose father, Nicholas,
died from a glioma in February 1998. It seeks damages of more than $ 100,000
each for the
Karayannis estate and for five surviving scientists - including two with the
deadly gliomas. Only one of the men, who has a non-cancerous tumor, still works
at the facility.
The lawsuit names two Amoco subsidiaries, Amoco Chemical Co. and Amoco Research
Operating Co., in
addition to the Chicago-based parent corporation. On Dec. 10, Amoco Corp.
shareholders overwhelmingly voted to approve a proposed merger with The British
Petroleum Co. The deal still awaits regulators' approval.
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