From Philco, Mitsumi to RCA: Critical Review of Occupational and Environmental Health Hazards of the Electronic Industry in Taiwan

In October, 1972, there were several cases of liver disease and sudden death of young female electronic workers in the Philco and Mitsumi factories in Taiwan. It was believed that these young female workers suffered from the acute intoxication of trichloroethylene (TCE) from their worksites. In June, 1974, TCE was banned in Taiwan, and the government promulgated a law to protect workers' health and to regulate solvent usages. Twenty years later, in 1994, the RCA (Radio Corporation of America) factory in Taiwan was impeached for polluting groundwater with TCE, perchloroethylene (PCE), and other industrial solvents. Subsequently, former RCA workers, who had been diagnosed with cancers, organized to voice their health concerns and potential exposure to the environmental and occupational hazards. In 1998, the government responded by initiating research in animal experiments, environmental health risk assessment, environmental epidemiology, and occupational epidemiology. However, these public health studies did not sufficiently verify correlation between industrial pollution and health. Up until 2012, the RCA toxic tort cases remain unsettled. In examining the toxicological and epidemiological research of organic solvents with a critical feminist perspective, it revealed that there were gender, class, and racial inequalities in the production of scientific evidence.