Brisbane ABC's cancer scare

ABC Television in Brisbane is facing massive disruption at the moment with its entire staff evacuated due to a cancer scare. As it’s Christmas and also as Brisbane has very little Brisbane-based TV production (generally, it is just the 7pm News and Stateline that originate in their Toowong studios), there is not going to be a great deal of disruption to service. There will be a noticable impact on Brisbane’s Local ABC Radio service.

So far, just the news staff have been evacuated, but other departments will soon follow.

From Brisbane’s Courier Mail newspaper:

Cancer cluster forces ABC from studio
Kevin Meade and Annabelle McDonald
December 22, 2006

THE ABC began abandoning its Brisbane studios yesterday after a panel of experts found women working at the site had a six times higher risk of being diagnosed with breast cancer.
While the experts found evidence of a cancer cluster, the cause of the high rate of breast cancer in the building remains a mystery.
Staff yesterday started moving out of the studios at Toowong, in the city’s inner west, to be housed in temporary accommodation, including the studios of commercial networks Seven andTen.

Pointing to a “very substantial clustering” at the studios, panel chairman Bruce Armstrong confirmed that 13 employees had been diagnosed with breast cancer since 1994 – including seven who worked in the same newsroom.

High-profile newsreader Lisa Backhouse – diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004 after working at the station for 15 years – resigned two weeks ago, blaming the mental and physical toll of working in a building she knew was unsafe.

“It’s a really frightening, hideous thing,” Ms Backhouse, 37, said yesterday.

Another former newsreader, Jo Stone, 33, who left the ABC after also being diagnosed with breast cancer, said she was considering legal action and the panel’s findings were “quite bittersweet” for her.

“I am just very relieved that nobody actually has to be in that building any more,” Ms Stone said.

ABC managing director Mark Scott said he felt great sympathy for the women involved but did not believe management could have acted any sooner. “We’ve got the evidence, we’ve got the evidence today, we’vemade the decision today,” Mr Scott said.

Professor Armstrong said there was no evidence of a high incidence of breast cancer at any other ABC sites.

But Mr Scott said similar studies would be carried out at ABC sites across the country to determine whether there were any cancer-causing factors in the public broadcaster’s operations.

Of the 13 women from Toowong with breast cancer, three were eliminated from the panel’s study – two because they were diagnosed after they stopped working at the site, and the third because she had an early non-invasive form of breast cancer.

By comparing the number of women working at the studios with Queensland Cancer Registry records, the study found the expected number of cases in the 12-year period was 1.6.

Professor Armstrong downplayed the prospect of a coincidence, saying the probability of such a high incidence of breast cancers in one workplace being caused by chance was about one in a million.

The study found that the longer women worked at the site, the more their risk of contracting breast cancer increased.

But the cause of the cancers has not been found, despite an extensive examination of the workplace. Some radiation and water studies have yet to be completed.

For the past two years there has been considerable anger among staff over the broadcaster’s failure to move to other premises, despite the high incidence of breast cancers.

The journalists’ union praised Mr Scott yesterday for ordering the study and closing down the site, but slammed ABC Queensland for failing to act sooner.

David Waters, the Queensland secretary of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, said two women at the site had contracted breast cancer since fears of a cancer cluster were raised with local management by staff in February last year.

He said ABC Queensland’s handling of the matter had been “at times tokenistic, at times dismissive, but overwhelmingly inadequate”.

“It has taken too long to get to the position of having a thorough investigation of the sort that we’ve had with Professor Armstrong’s expert panel,” Mr Waters said. He also attacked Queensland Health, whose investigation of the site last year was inconclusive.

The staff spokesman, sports newsreader Ian Eckersley, said staff felt vindicated by the report’s findings.

They felt a mixture of “shock, bewilderment, relief and ecstasy” at the findings and the decision to close the site.

“This is not the result we expected to get – moving off the site immediately – but it’s certainly welcome and it’s a relief, particularly for women who work on the site here.”

He said the women diagnosed with breast cancer were discussing suing the ABC. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a class action out of this,” he said.

Journalist Deirdre Hazel, who found a breast lump later diagnosed as benign, said staff were worried about “who’s next”.

“We all instinctively felt there was something more than what we were being told,” she said.