'A union president's worst nightmare'
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The sign in the parking lot of the Shippingport Community Park across the street from the Bruce Mansfield power plant in Shippingport.
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Herman Marshman says he knew something was wrong.
On a regular basis, he'd heard about fellow employees being diagnosed with rare cancers, respiratory disease and heart problems.
Finally he'd heard enough.
As president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 272 at the Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in Shippingport, Beaver County, Mr. Marshman asked the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the union's health-insurance provider at the time, to compile a list of diagnosed medical problems affecting union members.
In 2009, he got the results.
"It was staggering," Mr. Marshman said. "It was a union president's worst nightmare."
Here's what UPMC documented from its health records for 360 IBEW members employed at the 2,390-megawatt power plant and as many as a dozen recent retirees:
• Almost half -- 170 of the 360 -- had been diagnosed with serious ailments including hypertension, serious heart disease, a wide range of respiratory ailments and malignancies. Many of them had been diagnosed with more than one ailment.
• Twenty-five percent of the workforce or 91 union members had hypertension, including several cases of malignant hypertension, a sudden and rapid development of extremely high blood pressure that destroys blood vessels and organs. Another 33 had been diagnosed with heart disease, including 11 with atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries; six with blood clots and embolisms, and two who were suffering from aneurysms, a ballooning of the artery wall.
• Cardiovascular problems affected 11 percent of IBEW members at the plant.
• Many also have been diagnosed with pulmonary problems including 21 with acute bronchitis; 13 more with respiratory infections, most of them acute; 11 cases of asthma; seven cases of airway obstruction; four cases of other lung diseases; three cases of pneumonia; two cases each of pleurisy -- an inflammation of the lining of the lungs and chest cavity -- and pulmonary collapse; and one case of emphysema.
First Published December 18, 2010 12:00 am
