High Tech Dangers

*IN JUNE, John Zemotel died after being exposed to arsenic gas in a laboratory of the MA Conn plant he worked at on Route 128 outside of Boston. Company officials claim that Zemotel purposely exposed himself to the gas, though Zemotel's family and friends vigorously deny that Zemotel had any cause to commit suicide.

*In February, four workers were seriously injured at a circuit board plant in Derry, New Hampshire, after being exposed to the solvent methylene chloride. Methylene chloride was also the cause of illness to 61 workers at the Analogic Plant in Danvers two years ago.

*Lax safety standards have resulted in a series of diseases among high-tech workers, including skin-related problems, respiratory ailments and cancer. High tech industries are believed to have an illness rate three times as high as the average industry.

As the nation gets sucked up in the high tech craze, it is becoming clear that something is wrong--dangerously wrong. Many experts warn that the accidents experienced thus far by workers in the computer and silicon chip industries are only the tip of the iceberg. The reason for this gloom: the government has not adequately monitored high tech companies, and it shows no signs of starting to do so. And the companies themselves are using more and more toxic chemicals in the production of technology.

The basic problem in this new danger is that the government's chief regulatory agency--the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)--does not have the manpower to inspect even a significant minority of the thousands of workplaces around the country. It oversees 2800 inspectors, only a small portion of all the workplaces covered by the Occupational Safety Administration Act. Even if the agency had the requisite resources, it would probably not even know what to look for. The electronics industry is only beginning to learn how to analyze hazards of the workplace--especially long-term threats to worker health. OSHA, what's more, suffers from the red tape endemic to government agencies--bureaucracy which cripples the amount of regulation government can impose.

A perfect example of OSHA's inability to insure safe working conditions for high-tech workers is its inability to prevent firms from expanding the use of gallium arsenic "super chips"--the fumes from which killed John Zemotel. These chips are expected to enable computer companies to build machines that operate at speeds five times as great as the current generation of silicon-powered computers. The use of gallium arsenic, fatal in certain amounts, is thus expected to grow by 56 percent between 1987 and 1992.

Notwithstanding the potential profits, the industry has failed in one crucial respect--developing a safe method of producing these chips. It has been proven almost impossible to contain the arsenic gas used in the production of gallium arsenic. The industry has tried to conceal the stuff in silicon dioxide boats sealed in containers: unfortunately, no federal standards exist for either the boat or the container. Whereas the containers used to contain nuclear wastes go through vigorous testing before they are approved, the government does nothing of the sort for the gallium arsenic. Other types of safeguards are similarly unscrutinized.

OSHA does not have the resources to monitor industries for levels of arsenic, nor to research the long-term effects of worker exposure to low levels of airborne arsenic. And it is incapable of even establishing new safety standards. Even if OSHA did feel, finally, that gallium arsenic technology should be taken off the market, it would not have the power to do so. OSHA can only prescribe safety standards--it cannot out-law certain types of technology. Thus, barring a public outcry against the technology, production of chips seems destined to follow the inexorable and fatal growth pattern the High Tech Industry predicts.

THOUGH NO ONE likes to expand the bureaucracy, the best solution to the existing safety problems in high tech industry is to establish a new agency--one that would monitor solely computer and electronic firms. The narrow focus would enable such an agency to spend money researching the long-term effects of worker exposure to toxic chemicals. The agency could be empowered to prevent high tech companies from using potentially dangerous technology at will.

There are drawbacks to such an enterprise, of course. The agency could, for example, prevent many technological advances from ever entering the market. Under similar circumstances, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s tight regulation of the drug industry has unquestionably reduced the number of new drugs that hit the market. Until 1974 the FDA had approved, only seven percent of the drugs it tested for marketing, crippling many potentially beneficial advances.

But the benefits that accrue from having tight regulation over potentially dangerous technology or drugs far out-weigh the costs--simply by saving lives. The FDA's ban on pressurized aerosol mist in the 1960s significantly reduced the number of asthma deaths in the United States. A high tech regulatory agency would unquestionably produce similar benefits.

Many American politicians, intellectuals and businessmen are looking to high tech industries as the saviors of our nation's economy, and well they may. The microelectronics and computer revolutions promise an easier, more efficient, and more comfortable life for a majority of citizens in Massachusetts and elsewhere. But unless dramatic action is taken, for a small minority of workers, these revolutions are destined to exact a terrible price--a price that may often be irreversible.