The paper, financed in part by CSX Transportation, reported on a random and anonymous sample of rail workers who had sued CSX, alleging that the solvent exposure had caused them brain damage--solvent toxic encephalopathy. The UM researchers had obtained a waiver of informed consent from the university's IRB, as required by federal regulations, before using the worker's data. The principal investigator, James Albers, a professor of neurology and co-director of the neurobehavioral toxicology program, had originally examined the rail workers as an expert witness for the railroad company, and he and his colleagues performed a retrospective study on the results, which was then published. Albers also had received a $30,000 Sphere Award from Dow Chemical Corp., a company that had manufactured some of the solvents. Albers and his team concluded that solvent encephalopathy did not exist in the studied workers. He had previously testified that he had never seen a ...
Scientists Court New Ethics Distinctions
A 42-year-old woman came to the office of Louisville neuropsychologist Martine RoBards in 1999. Once the "star" of her workplace, a railroad mechanic shop, the woman now suffered insomnia, depression, anxiety, and memory loss. She had trouble organizing her thoughts and reciting her own history. The woman reported eight years of chronic exposure to mixed organic solvents used to clean engine parts. RoBards, who describes herself as a medical Nancy Drew, with help from a neurologist, made a diagn
Written byKatherine Uraneck
| 7 min read
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