The new report is the first connected with the nation's first large, independently funded study that seeks to explain how railroad workers may have been affected by solvents like 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and perchlorethylene. Workers who participated in the study came from railroad shops in Cumberland, Md., and Huntington, W.Va.
"It is no surprise to me," Deanna Bowerman said of the study's findings.
Her late husband, Dale, was a CSX railroad machinist in Louisville and Corbin, Ky., and was diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy — characterized by chronic depression, loss of short-term memory and hair-trigger temper.
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In a 10-month investigation in 2000 and 2001, The Courier-Journal learned that Bowerman and more than 600 other U.S. railroad employees had been diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy after spending years in workplaces where solvents were widely used with little or no protection.
The newspaper found that the debate within the medical community about whether exposure to solvents in the workplace caused brain damage had diminished in the 1990s.
But studies of railroad workers were less common, and some that were funded by CSX Transportation had found no link between solvent exposure and the illness. The newspaper found that CSX, the railroad company with the largest number of claims, had paid out nearly $35 million to more than 460 current or former workers diagnosed with the illness.
Railroads began phasing the chemicals out of their shops in the early 1990s.
CSX has both won and lost jury verdicts in chemical exposure cases that have gone to trial. It has argued that its workers' problems could be explained by other factors, such as drinking alcohol, side effects from prescribed medication, or illnesses such as depression or diabetes.
Gary Sease, a spokesman for CSX, said the company continues to believe there is no credible and conclusive scientific basis to support claims that solvent exposure harmed company workers.
Joe Satterley, a Louisville attorney who represents railroad workers, said he's aware of at least 100 pending lawsuits in Kentucky and elsewhere that were filed in the last few years.
The study, he said, "substantiates everything we've been saying all along."
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findings of eight researchers were published in June in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. They are based on comparing images of the brains of 31 railroad workers who were exposed to solvents over a period of at least 10 years to 31 people who were not.
Any workers involved in pending litigation with the railroad were excluded, as were those with current substance abuse, a history of serious medical illness, or a diagnosis of mental illness before solvent exposure, Haut said. The researchers also factored out potential effects from high blood pressure and diabetes, which can cause the brain to shrink.
With funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, the researchers found that the size of the corpus callosum — a bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain that allows communication between the sides — was significantly smaller in the railroad workers.
And the part most affected, they found, was the genu, a section of the corpus callosum that connects the frontal lobes, which are associated with decision making, problem solving and emotions.
The researchers also concluded that psychiatric conditions, such as depression, could not have caused the physical changes in workers' brains.
