Cancer-related deaths are higher among IBM workers exposed to solvents and chemicals used in computer and related electronic-component manufacturing when compared to the general population, according to a report published this week in the Environmental Health journal.

After analyzing nearly 32,000 records in an IBM Corporate Mortality File maintained by the company and obtained in 2002 as part of a lawsuit, the report's author said he found "an unusual pattern" of cancers related to solvent and chemical exposure. Other studies have reported similar findings, but this report includes the largest database available to date, said Richard W. Clapp, the report's author and environmental health professor at Boston University.

IBM did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in a written statement to the Press & Sun-Bulletin.

"Dr. Clapp prepared his study as a paid expert witness in support of unsuccessful litigation against IBM," the company said. "It is based on flawed methodology and woefully incomplete data."

IBM also referenced a University of Alabama and Harvard University study that it said showed IBM employees who worked at three of the company's computer-chip and hard-drive assembly plants over more than three decades had lower overall mortality and cancer incidence rates than the general population.

The Mortality File contains data on employees at the company for at least five years who qualified for pension and death benefits and died between 1969 and 2001. The records also include data on each employee's underlying cause of death and work history.

Study results indicate that among male workers, there were "elevated" instances of deaths related to brain and central nervous system cancer and "significantly elevated" instances of deaths related to kidney cancer, skin melanoma and pancreatic cancer.

Kidney cancer and cancer of all lymphatic and hematopoietic tissue (related to blood cell formation) were significantly elevated in female workers, the study said.

The study does not break out individual results for workers at specific plants such as the one in Endicott, Clapp said. His report also does not contain conclusions about associations with any particular agent.

Still, Lee Conrad, of Alliance@IBM in Endicott, said many former IBMers have suspected the chemicals they regularly worked with could eventually make them sick.

Conrad said he helped manufacture circuit boards at IBM in Endicott in the 1970s and worked with chemicals such as the widely used industrial solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE.

"We used to joke that we'd choke on the fresh air when we left (work) because we were so used to breathing in the toxic chemicals," Conrad said.

He described how plastic faces on clocks in one IBM building became pitted from the fumes, and workers' belt buckles would corrode and their clothing would "rot" over time from chemical exposure.

"If the chemicals were disintegrating clothing, you could only imagine what they were doing to lungs and people's health," Conrad said. "We all feel like we're walking time bombs as we find out more and more about the health hazards. ... People died because of this neglect."

Conrad said he has not developed any illnesses he thinks are related to his work at IBM.

Alliance@IBM, which describes itself as an advocate group for IBM employees, is calling for more studies to determine the health effects of chemicals used in IBM's manufacturing processes.

Clapp said his report was peer-reviewed by other scientists, including a researcher who works at the Harvard School of Public Health and was co-investigator of the University of Alabama study.

Clapp also said he was not paid to produce the manuscript and his prior work as a consultant to the law firm is fully disclosed in his report. The law firm played no role in the design of the study, its conduct or the written manuscript, he said.