In an alarming revelation, North Carolina State University recently disclosed that it was investigating the number of students and alumni who have been exposed to dangerous levels of a possible carcinogen known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
Fox News reported that in November 2023, the university shut down a campus building that contained the toxic carcinogen.
Over 150 students who attended classes at Poe Hall have reported having cancer. With concerns growing, the school shut down the building.
The Blaze pointed out that the report mentioned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) detected that PCB levels exceeded standards for building materials by a factor of 38. The toxic chemical was found in five rooms around the campus.
#POEHALL CANCER: North Carolina State University cancer cluster is linked to abandoned campus building – 150 cases and rising! #NC https://t.co/KbSQfuo9fe via https://t.co/Qn64hMcLSO
— Christina RadChick Consolo (@radchickyo) April 1, 2024
An alumnus at North Carolina State University, Christie Lewis, told Fox News, “I was finishing up my finals, and I was going in for a physical at the health center. … I was having night sweats for weeks and weeks before this, and I could not figure out what was happening.”
“I was having to get up in the middle of night and change clothes completely. And then I would fall asleep. And I had to put a towel down. It honestly took me weeks to even tell my husband about them because I kept on forgetting about it because it was just in the middle of the night,” Lewis added.
From 2007-2012, Lewis attended the school. While studying business, she switched her area of study to education and began taking classes at Poe Hall, having studied in the building “for about four years.”
During her time at the university, Lewis was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Months after the tragic diagnosis, she found a lump in her throat and was diagnosed with angiosarcoma, according to the New York Post.
“And so just as I’m finishing up my finals and my papers, I’m going to see an endocrinologist and they’re doing a biopsy of my neck, and that’s traumatic,” Lewis continued. “They don’t sedate you or anything. They just kind of shove a huge needle into your throat and jab it around everywhere.”
Lewis said that although she understood that some individuals obtain cancer, she expressed concern after coming across the number of cancer diagnoses by the school’s alumni, which was three times higher than all cancer cases in Wake County, North Carolina.
