AMD clean room chemicals caused birth defects.

[shargrath]

http://www.lawfuel.com/show-release.asp?ID=16159

o god here come the law suits.

 

[spoonboy]

She shouldnt have worked through her pregnancy, working with/around toxic chemicals and all. Sad case though.

 

[Rabidpeanut]

I don't want to sound like a dick and this IS rather a horrible thing that has happened but ummm.

DUH!

**** americans sueing everyone and everything for their own stupidity.

Still i do feel sorry for her and her child stupid though she may be.

 

[rodney_ws]

Let's be honest... some babies are born stupid for no known reason. I think that should be AMD's defense... you can't explain ALL birth defects so how are you so certain you can pin this on us? Lawyers are ruining EVERYTHING!

 

[Raviolissimo]

in the '80's or early '90's, AMD paid about $15K to each
of the homes in an area of Sunnyvale because they
(AMD) polluted the ground-water.

it's not that hard to control industrial waste products,
to keep them out of the water supply. but it does
cost money.

 

[spaztic7]

How do you get a baby in a glass?

 

[rgeist554]

She shouldnt have worked through her pregnancy, working with/around toxic chemicals and all. Sad case though.

Yep, sad, but like you said... why is she working through her pregnancy? On top of that, why is she working through her pregnancy around chemicals? Wouldn't that be the first thing that clicks in your head? Oh geeze, this might be bad for my baby... This reminds me of a newspaper article where a pregnant lady is smoking a cigarette (in the picture for the article) outside with the title of the article "Pregnant Woman Worried Construction Sounds May Harm Her Baby" or something along those lines...

 

[gwolfman]

She shouldnt have worked through her pregnancy, working with/around toxic chemicals and all. Sad case though.

Yep, sad, but like you said... why is she working through her pregnancy? On top of that, why is she working through her pregnancy around chemicals? Wouldn't that be the first thing that clicks in your head? Oh geeze, this might be bad for my baby... This reminds me of a newspaper article where a pregnant lady is smoking a cigarette (in the picture for the article) outside with the title of the article "Pregnant Woman Worried Construction Sounds May Harm Her Baby" or something along those lines...

Yeah, but if you read the article, she said she asked the doctor if it was ok (according to her side of the story) and they just send her to another plant. So, she tried asking, though I still think it was a bad idea not to ask more people. Sad story.

 

[amnotanoobie]

It is also quite ironic that in a 'clean room' there are actually a ton of hazardous chemicals flying in the air. I agree with rgeist, even though the lady did not get an answer from the ones that did her medical, she should've at least tried to get answers herself. I don't understand why she didn't find it strange that no one answered her when she asked if it's safe to go to work being pregnant and all.

 

[wolverinero79]

The interesting part of this article is that the person filing the lawsuit had to be treated for inhalation of chemicals twice. That's really not acceptable - how lax is AMD's safety policy?

This part is stupid though:
"Like millions of Americans, Maria Ruiz did not realize that 'clean rooms' are designed to keep damaging dust particles from semiconductor wafers during manufacturing, not to protect men and women exposed to a spectrum of hazardous teratogen chemicals and fumes"

Any moron knows in their first week of training that almost all precautions of the cleanroom are to protect the wafers. It has nothing to do with how comfortable we can make people. However, every semiconductor company has a responsibility to make sure that people leave work in the same condition as when they entered. It'll be hard for the lady to prove it was just AMD's chemicals. How does she prove she didn't do cocaine during her pregnancy? How does she explain other pregnant women that have worked around those chemicals without defects in their babies? AMD's legal team isn't as deep as Intel's, but considering how many frivolous lawsuits AMD generates, they definitely have quite a few lawyers on the payroll.

 

[bornking]

They should have warned her in the first place. Simple as pie.

 

[rgeist554]

The interesting part of this article is that the person filing the lawsuit had to be treated for inhalation of chemicals twice.

I know, she must be incompetent or something... Ok, a full grown adult, her, had to be treated twice for dangerous chemicals... what do you think the same amount of chemicals is going to do to someone 1/8th her size that is still developing??

This part is stupid though:
"Like millions of Americans, Maria Ruiz did not realize that 'clean rooms' are designed to keep damaging dust particles from semiconductor wafers during manufacturing, not to protect men and women exposed to a spectrum of hazardous teratogen chemicals and fumes"

Exactly, why the heck would you think that the room is clean of chemicals after you had to be treated not once, but twice, and you still go in there again with a kid inside you... It's like the stupid "Hot Coffee from McDonalds" crap all over again. I do feel bad for the kid though. : /

**Edit** Also, not getting an answer to your question is pretty much a "We don't know" or a "No... but we don't want to tell you that". Are you going to gamble your kids health like that? I don't think many people would if they thought about it like so.

 

[Harrisson]

I feel for the kid and mother, but this story sounds wierd. There is no proof for her claims, and whats more - she files lawsuit 16 years(!) after incident.

 

[No1sFanboy]

I have not read the story in detail so I won't comment on it the specific case. To be clear though there is no question that the employer has liability if her work environment was the cause. Implementing safe guards may not be so easy. I remember a case where a manufacturer of auto batteries would not hire women of child bearing age in jobs that would expose them to lead acid. The company was then sued for discriminating against the same women they were protecting.

 

[rgeist554]

F&*@#$ women. (I'm just kidding!) Seriously though, there needs to be a way to close up all these friggen loopholes so that employers can't be sued by protecting people.I'm referring to NO1sFanboy's post, not the AMD case ("Damned if you do, damned if you don't" comes to mind here)

 

[chunkymonster]

They should have warned her in the first place. Simple as pie.

It would be niave to think that AMD and their lawyers do not/did not require employees to sign a whole host of disclaimers, NDA's, and waivers as well as any disclose and comply with OSHA requirements regarding chemicals in the workplace. There is nothing to stop any employee from reading any MSDS's except the employee themselves. I also agree that regardless of whether AMD did or did not tell her about whatever chemicals, it was/is still her responsibility to know and understand the environment she was working in.

I feel for the kid and mother, but this story sounds wierd. There is no proof for her claims, and whats more - she files lawsuit 16 years(!) after incident.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who caught that. She learned she was pregnant in 1991 so the kid was at least 10 years old when she quit working in the clean room in 2002. This implies that she didn't put two and two together during the first 10 years of the kids life?! C'mon.

The fact that she is also suing the local OB/GYN also plays into the notion that she's only (possibly) looking for financial compensation.

 

[NMDante]

There are MSDS literature for all the chemicals used in a fab. Most women who become pregnant aren't allowed in the fab (unless they choose to do so themselves) after a certain period of their pregnancy. Some work in the office doing engineering "gopher" jobs - collect data, make stupid charts, setup conference rooms, etc.

I haven't seen any pregnant woman in the fab after a certain period, since I've been working in a fab. The latest I've seen was my engineer's wife, and she was forced out after her 3rd month.

 

[spoonboy]

The interesting part of this article is that the person filing the lawsuit had to be treated for inhalation of chemicals twice. That's really not acceptable - how lax is AMD's safety policy?

This part is stupid though:
"Like millions of Americans, Maria Ruiz did not realize that 'clean rooms' are designed to keep damaging dust particles from semiconductor wafers during manufacturing, not to protect men and women exposed to a spectrum of hazardous teratogen chemicals and fumes"

Any moron knows in their first week of training that almost all precautions of the cleanroom are to protect the wafers. It has nothing to do with how comfortable we can make people. However, every semiconductor company has a responsibility to make sure that people leave work in the same condition as when they entered. It'll be hard for the lady to prove it was just AMD's chemicals. How does she prove she didn't do cocaine during her pregnancy? How does she explain other pregnant women that have worked around those chemicals without defects in their babies? AMD's legal team isn't as deep as Intel's, but considering how many frivolous lawsuits AMD generates, they definitely have quite a few lawyers on the payroll.

Being treated for chemical inhaltion twice might have made anyone else think: "hmmmmm... maybe I should take some leave till the baby comes".

 

[spoonboy]

There are MSDS literature for all the chemicals used in a fab. Most women who become pregnant aren't allowed in the fab (unless they choose to do so themselves) after a certain period of their pregnancy. Some work in the office doing engineering "gopher" jobs - collect data, make stupid charts, setup conference rooms, etc.

I haven't seen any pregnant woman in the fab after a certain period, since I've been working in a fab. The latest I've seen was my engineer's wife, and she was forced out after her 3rd month.

"make stupid charts" LOL, what, like: "percentage of prune juice in AMD worker's urine, 1997-2002, *figures in red indicate percentage of trace cocaine"

 

[NMDante]

"make stupid charts" LOL, what, like: "percentage of prune juice in AMD worker's urine, 1997-2002, *figures in red indicate percentage of trace cocaine"

Nah, more like defects vs. % of wafer usage type charts.

When I was hurt (scheduled surgery, not an accident, I had a boot, couldn't go into fab), I had to help the admin out with some stuff. Nothing huge. I helped engineering by rebuilding all the laptops we use in the fab for my department, by formating and re-installing WinNT and some software we use in the fab. I did one chart which was defects vs. other fabs for my department. And yes, it was all color coded and labeled.

It was the most boring 5 weeks of work I ever did there.