6 Employees Working on Same Floor of Boston-Area Hospital Diagnosed With Brain Tumors

The employees all worked on the fifth floor ‘for varying durations,’ the hospital president said, adding that investigators have found no environmental risks.

A registered nurse cares for a patient at a hospital in Apple Valley, Calif., on Jan. 5, 2021. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Six employees who have performed work on the same floor at a Boston-area hospital have been diagnosed with brain tumors.

Mass General Brigham Newton-Wellesley Hospital President and Chief Operating Officer Ellen A. Maloney identified the sixth staff member in a statement on April 10 after other cases were disclosed earlier in April.

All six staff members “worked for varying durations on the fifth floor” and have reported having benign, or noncancerous, brain tumors, Maloney said.

An evaluation of the fifth floor, led by the Mass General Brigham Department of Occupational Health and Safety and involving other experts, interviewed staffers, reviewed the quality of the air and water, and tested for potential radiation, chemical, and pharmaceutical exposures.

“Based on the results of this rigorous ongoing investigation, we can assure you that no environmental risks have been identified at our hospital,” Maloney said.

The investigation is ongoing, but there is no evidence that the tumors “were caused by the work environment,” she added later.

The fifth floor at Newton-Wellesley Hospital contains rooms for maternal care and baby delivery.

Some 668 X-rays with portable machines were carried out on the floor from 2020 through 2024, according to a hospital memorandum obtained by local news outlets. But even if one staff member had been just one meter away from the machine as all the X-rays were done, that person would have been exposed to only about twice the amount of normal exposure, the memo stated, not accounting for safety measures the hospital takes.

The evaluators also pored through medical literature and found no evidence linking long-term use of masks to brain tumors, discovered normal ionizing radiation levels, and determined that ventilation systems taking chemotherapy medications dispensed on the hospital’s fourth floor away from the building are working properly.

The early April memo said that air quality tests returned normal results, apart from slightly elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, and that results for water from taps and ice machines were not back yet.

“We are glad the hospital is continuing to look into this situation,” a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), a union that represents nurses at the hospital, told The Epoch Times in an email.

The union is conducting its own probe, including vetting medical records if nurses are willing to provide them.

“We recognize that nurses and many other people want immediate information about the situation,” the spokesperson said.

“This urgency comes from a place of concern for the health of nurses, their families, and patients—an urgency that we share. Right now, the best way we can help is to complete an independent, scientific investigation. That effort is underway and may take additional weeks. The investigation is being conducted by the MNA’s division of health and safety, consisting of occupational health nurses, in collaboration with the Newton-Wellesley nurses.”