The stories told earlier this year in a report by KPHO TV were heartbreaking: case after case of hard-working couples who had children born with severe birth defects. The link between the families: all had at least one parent who worked in a so-called "clean room" manufacturing microchips between the 1970s and 1990s.

According to documents in lawsuits filed against chip-maker IBM, the major microchip manufacturers knew for years that a chemical called ethylene glycol ether that employees used during the microchip manufacturing process could be harming the children of their employees.

Birth defects among those kids include cerebral palsy, epilepsy and severe speech and vision disabilities. Some of the children, many of whom are now adults, require around-the-clock care leaving the parents with essentially two options: provide the nonstop care themselves or pay for expensive care by professionals.

Attorney Frank Verderame says most of the high cost of professional care -- it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year -- is currently being picked up by taxpayers and insurance companies. He's working to change that.

Verderame has filed lawsuits against Motorola, Intel and other microchip makers, which we blogged about in May. "These companies made billions of dollars from these chips," he told KPHO. "The people who profited from this wrongdoing should be the ones to pay to repair the problem, not the rest of society. Not the people who are buying insurance, but the companies who profited from it."

He represents dozens of families in the Valley who believe the health problems their children suffer from are due to their exposure to the toxic ethylene glycol ether in clean rooms where their parents worked for years. Naturally enough, there is no small amount of anguish involved for the parents, who say they were never warned by their employers of the possible consequences of exposure to the substance.

Back in 1981, Union Carbide, maker of glycol, issued a warning about possible miscarriages and birth defects; research in 1982 showed that the chemical caused birth defects in test animals, and the microchip trade association issued warnings about the substance repeatedly.

Since airing its report, KPHO received calls from viewers who had worked in clean rooms and have children with birth defects. Their heartbreak was evident, according to a follow-up by the station.

Attorney Verderame says he's pursuing compensation from the chip makers for those children with birth defects, so they get the quality medical care they need and deserve. He says he's determined to hold the manufacturers accountable for their actions and the damages they caused.

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