Right before fall 2023 midterms, North Carolina State University shut down Poe Hall, a bustling campus building home to hundreds of workers and thousands of students.
The reason?
Hazardous levels of toxic chemicals, known as Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) were found inside.
Within hours of the closure, WRAL News began receiving tips about multiple cases of cancer and poor environmental conditions in the building.
Within a year, WRAL News had interviewed hundreds of workers and alumni, filed 60 records requests, published nearly 100 reports and reviewed more than 10,000 pages of documents.
By Dec. 2024, 215 people were reporting to WRAL News that they had cancer. All had worked or learned in Poe Hall...
Nearly half of the reported cases were breast cancer. Other cases included thyroid, blood, and skin cancers, all of which studies have linked to PCB exposure.
Built in 1971, the seven-story Poe Hall most recently housed NC State's Psychology Department and College of Education.
Poe Hall was constructed when chemicals called Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) were commonly used in machinery and building construction materials, such as sealants, caulking, paint and fluorescent lights.
PCBs are semi-volatile, meaning they can slowly release into the air and be inhaled.
Once inhaled, PCBs can remain in the body for years, primarily accumulating in fat.
Studies have linked PCBs to an increased rate of diseases: such as liver cancer, skin cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer, breast cancer and thyroid cancer.
Other ailments such as brain fog, fertility issues and skin rashes have also been connected to PCBs.
Because of their harmful effects on humans and the environment, production of PCBs was banned in 1979.
In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified PCBs as a Group One carcinogen.
Meaning there is “significant evidence,” that it causes cancer in humans.
Considered the original "forever chemical," Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) remain in many older structures, like Poe Hall, today – unless actively remediated.
Emails leaked to WRAL show workers complained about the building's air quality for more than a decade.
In 2018, testing of the exterior caulking of Poe Hall showed that PCB levels were more than 300 times higher than the EPA's hazardous threshold.
It would be another five years before the university tested the inside of Poe Hall.
In August 2023, a faculty member notified the university that she, along with seven other Poe Hall employees, were battling breast cancer.
She urged the institution to investigate the building for potential environmental contaminants.
In September 2023, another education professor with breast cancer filed complaints with the North Carolina Department of Labor and the EPA over potential PCB exposure.
In October and November 2023, North Carolina State spent 7 days voluntarily testing parts of Poe Hall for PCBs.
PCB contamination was discovered throughout the building.
In multiple locations, PCB levels exceeded the safety threshold established by the EPA for human exposure.
Within two weeks of testing, the university closed Poe Hall.
As news of PCBs in Poe Hall spread, former workers and alumni contacted the university and health officials to report that they had cancer and other health issues.
Both NC State and the state health department said they were not collecting such information.
So WRAL News did...
We collected detailed information: diagnoses, time spent in Poe Hall, ages, specific work locations within the building, and other relevant data.
The goal wasn't to prove a direct link between cancer and PCBs in the building, but to reveal the scale of the cases – and highlight how many people felt personally impacted and were seeking answers.
Within a year, 215 people had self-reported that they developed cancer after spending time in Poe Hall.
Among those who came forward, 59 were current or former workers and 156 were current or former students.
170 are female, 45 male
They reported various cancer diagnoses, including thyroid, blood, breast, and skin cancers, all of which studies have linked to PCB exposure.
No diagnosis was reported more often than breast cancer.
WRAL analyzed breast cancer diagnoses among workers at Poe Hall in 2022 and found the incidence rate was three times higher than the county average.
The second most common diagnosis was blood cancer, which included leukemia, lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
In one case, an individual was diagnosed with both leukemia and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at different times.
The third most common diagnosis was skin cancer.
The fourth most common was thyroid cancer.
Thirty-three individuals reported having other types of cancer, including liver, brain and soft tissue cancers.
On average, people reporting cancer spent 7 years in the building.
The average age of diagnosis in Poe Hall was 44. The average age of diagnosis nationally is 66, according to the National Cancer Institute.
69 percent of the people reporting were diagnosed in the past 10 years.
Only individuals who were students or employees present in the building during the semester of its closure received notification about the chemicals and the shutdown.
As news of the closure spread and WRAL's investigation continued, individuals who had spent time in Poe Hall began coming forward with their diagnoses. Reports reached WRAL from as far away as New Mexico, Washington and even Canada.
They all had one question: Did the building contribute to their illnesses?
NC State officials said they couldn't address health concerns until the contamination was better understood. In December 2023, NC State's outside counsel hired a consulting firm to take additional samples.
In total, the firm and NC State took around 245 air, wipe or bulk samples in Poe Hall between 2018 and 2024.
The air samples would determine whether contaminants were present in the air.
The bulk samples would reveal if PCBs were embedded in building materials, such as caulking or sealant.
The wipe samples would indicate whether PCBs were present on surfaces or in dust within the building.
To provide clarity on where samples were taken and what they revealed, WRAL News spent six months analyzing over 1,000 pages of test results, condensing the data into three accessible spreadsheets, which you can explore here.
We then recreated the floor maps of Poe and plotted out where samples were taken and what was found.
To ensure accuracy, WRAL consulted a former CDC industrial hygienist with three decades of experience studying PCBs to review the findings.
On the 1st floor, 39 samples were taken; 29 samples tested positive for PCBs and 15 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 8 spaces, noted in gold.
Four areas, in red, showed levels of PCBs at or above the levels that the EPA deems unsafe for human exposure.
On the 2nd floor, 20 samples were taken; 14 samples tested positive for PCBs and 4 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 8 spaces.
Bulk samples from the HVAC system in the hallway revealed levels so high they require removal under EPA regulations, with one reading exceeding the threshold by 480 times.
On the 3rd floor, 49 samples were taken; 44 samples tested positive for PCBs and 35 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 19 spaces.
In 15 areas, PCB levels met or exceeded the EPA's unsafe exposure threshold. All were bulk samples taken from the HVAC system or caulking, except for one wipe sample of dust from the windowsill in room 300D.
On the 4th floor 22 samples were taken; 18 samples tested positive for PCBs and 5 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 7 spaces.
In two areas, bulk samples revealed PCB levels at or above the threshold deemed unsafe for human exposure by the EPA.
On the 5th floor 41 samples were taken; 29 samples tested positive for PCBs and 18 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 10 spaces.
In 9 spaces, PCBs levels were at or above the limit the EPA deems unsafe for human exposure. All were bulk samples.
On the 6th floor 38 samples were taken; 33 samples tested positive for PCBs and 27 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 15 spaces.
In 12 spaces, PCB levels were at or above the limit the EPA deems unsafe for human exposure. All were bulk samples. In the hallway near room 607, one sample taken was 960 times the limit.
On the 7th floor 18 samples were taken; 11 samples tested positive for PCBs and 3 exceeded EPA levels.
PCBs were detected in 6 spaces.
In three areas, PCB levels met or exceeded the EPA's unsafe exposure limit. Bulk samples from classrooms 724 and 736 showed levels above the EPA threshold, as did a wipe sample from the windowsill in room 730.
Most concerning to scientists were the samples in the building's HVAC system, which were often dozens if not hundreds of times higher than the EPA limit.
Investigators from the consulting firm hired by NC State believe gold sealant found in the HVAC system in Poe Hall is the likely culprit of the PCB contamination.
Air samples taken from the building were found to be below EPA limits, yet nearly all showed the presence of PCBs. Concerning, according to scientists, since PCBs can enter the body through inhalation.
Of the 215 individuals who reported cancer to WRAL, about half could pinpoint where they spent time in the building.
Notably, on the sixth floor, an office in Suite 608 had PCB levels 460 times the EPA limit, and three individuals who worked there have since been diagnosed with cancer.
In many cases, however, the specific rooms where these individuals diagnosed with cancer say they spent time were not tested.
On the third floor, Jeremy Tuchmayer worked in offices 300H and 310F while earning his doctorate from 2010 to 2014. Darren Masier, who joined the program a year earlier, believes he worked in 310J.
Both spent four years in the building. Both were diagnosed with leukemia in 2023.
Masier filed a petition in court to conduct more testing. And in August, NC State allowed it.
In the aftermath of the closure, records show the university did not initially respond to emails from the EPA asking to schedule an in-person visit to Poe Hall.
"I still have not heard anything from the University about this situation." – Terri Crosby-Vega
In November 2023, the university asked a division of the Centers for Disease Control to conduct a Health Hazard Evaluation of Poe Hall.
The evaluation would investigate the health of the workers in Poe Hall, and seek to determine whether chemicals in the building contributed to any illnesses.
In February 2024, WRAL reported that NC State was no longer participating in the Health Hazard Evaluation, effectively ending the CDC's ability to investigate health concerns at the building.
Within a week of the news breaking that the federal health investigation had ended, the College of Education passed votes of no confidence against the university's chancellor, Randy Woodson, and executive vice chancellor, Warwick Arden.
Within three hours of the vote, NC State re-requested the CDC's involvement.
In October 2024, a letter obtained by WRAL showed a division of the CDC was investigating whether the cancer cases reported in people who worked in Poe Hall have anything to do with the chemicals found in the building.