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This article is from the VOGON News Service, #1236:
 
 Pregnant Women - Banned from AT&T production lines
   AT&T has banned pregnant women from semiconductor production lines in
 response to a study finding high miscarriage rates in certain chip-making jobs,
 the company confirmed Tuesday. The company, which has 4,000 production workers
 at five chip plants in Pennsylvania, Missouri and Florida, is believed to be
 the nation's first semiconductor manufacturer to impose such a ban. Other
 companies encourage women to leave the production area when they become
 pregnant, but do not require it, Sheila Sandow, a spokeswoman for the
 Semiconductor Industry Association in Cupertino, Calif., said Tuesday. "It was
 precautionary. We don't know the full extent of the situation, so we felt this
 was an appropriate action," said Lydia Whitefield, spokeswoman for AT&T
 Technology Systems in Berkeley Heights, N.J. The company said 15 pregnant
 women at the plants have been transferred, all of them willingly, since the
 policy started last month. AT&T is guaranteeing new jobs at comparable pay and
 benefits for pregnant chip production workers. The industry study was
 conducted by University of Massachusetts researchers at the DEC chip plant in
 Hudson, Mass. Looking at 770 workers between 1980 and 1985, it found that
 women on chip production lines suffered twice the miscarriage rate of other
 women at the plant. DEC guarantees comparable jobs to women who decide to
 leave production jobs when they become pregnant, and has since before the
 University of Massachusetts study, company spokesman Jeff Gibson said. Since
 the study came out, the company has begun offering free pregnancy tests for
 employees, he said. The Semiconductor Industry Association is scheduled to meet
 later this month with researchers from the Digital Equipment study.
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