During the fall semester of 2023, North Carolina State University unexpectedly shut down a large academic building after discovering high levels of toxic chemicals inside.
What began as whispers about a few cancer cases quickly grew into widespread concern.
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Within a year, hundreds of people were asking the same question: Could the chemicals in Poe Hall have caused their cancer?
It was a tough question to answer, but one the university appeared to want to address.
The closure and the initial health investigation
Emails provided to WRAL show that in August 2023, an employee informed a university administrator that they were aware of seven women working in Poe Hall who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The employee requested that the university test the building for environmental contaminants.
"This is alarming, and I wanted to inquire if there has been an environmental study of Poe Hall. If so, I would like to have a copy of the report to read. If not, I would…like to advocate for the appropriate funds to conduct a study," they wrote.
Records indicate the university had previously tested for asbestos and lead but had not tested the interior of Poe Hall for PCBs.
The following month, the employee emailed the same administrator again, stating that they were now aware of 13 cases of breast cancer and three cases of lung cancer among current and former Poe Hall employees. They pleaded with the administrator to take action.
The administrator responded, saying he had difficulty contacting the university's environmental health and safety department to arrange testing but assured the employee that an investigation would begin soon. The next month, the university tested Poe Hall for PCBs.
The results showed the building was contaminated with PCBs in five areas.
Want to view the results of the initial five interior PCB test reports? Click or tap below
- NC State Poe Hall test results for PCB levels on Oct. 20, 2023
- NC State Poe Hall test results for PCB levels on Oct. 31, 2023
- NC State Poe Hall test results for PCB levels from Nov. 9-13, 2023
- NC State Poe Hall test results for PCB levels on Nov. 10, 2023
- NC State Poe Hall test results for PCB levels on Nov. 10, 2023
Acting on advice from the state health department, university officials sought assistance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In November 2023, the same month Poe Hall was closed, the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) launched a Health Hazard Evaluation.
While the CDC would not comment on the details of an open investigation, a typical evaluation could review medical records, collect samples at worksites and investigate whether cancers in workers were linked to workplace exposures.
"The university looked like it actually cared and was trying to get down to the bottom of that," said Kate Norwalk, an assistant professor at NC State at the time of the closure, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer three years earlier. "It felt really good."
PCBs were commonly used in building materials during the mid-20th century but were later banned due to their carcinogenic effects in humans. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified PCBs as a known carcinogen.
Poe Hall was built in 1971 – eight years before the chemicals were banned. PCBs are considered an "original forever chemical" and can vaporize over time. Once airborne, the chemicals can be inhaled and activate cancer gene receptors.
In 2020, the same year that Norwalk received her diagnosis, a study of about 750 women in North Carolina found that exposure to PCBs might increase the risk of death from breast cancer.
According to the university, thousands of students attended classes in Poe Hall each semester, and approximately 400 employees, including graduate students, worked in the building.
Norwalk had spent seven years inside Poe Hall. By the time Poe Hall closed, a coworker on her floor had also been diagnosed with breast cancer. But the extent of just how many people were sick was unknown. Despite the Health Hazard Evaluation, records and testimony given to WRAL News showed the university was in no hurry to find out.
A yearlong WRAL investigation into Poe Hall found the university delayed a federal health investigation and failed to notify alumni and former workers about the chemicals found inside the building.
Just as the university began testing Poe Hall for PCBs, a nurse who served as the head of the university's occupational medicine department started distributing questionnaires to some cancer-affected workers, asking for details such as their zip code, type of diagnosis and the number of years they had worked in Poe Hall.
The nurse informed respondents that their information would be shared with the state health department. In an internal email, another administrator wrote that the university was trying to "encourage as much participation as possible" to provide state health officials "with as complete a picture as possible."
However, when former employees like Darren Masier learned about the questionnaire and submitted their responses to the university, they told WRAL News that NC State never replied.
Masier and his former coworker, Jeremy Tuchmayer, both spent four years in Poe Hall about a decade earlier. In 2023, both were diagnosed with leukemia.
The state health department confirmed to WRAL News that it had recommended NC State share the collected information with the CDC. While it is unclear how much data was turned over, a memo indicates that federal health investigators were initially informed of only six cases in November 2023. When the federal health investigator requested additional information from the university's environmental health and safety department, they said they were instead “contacted by the university’s general counsel requesting a meeting.”
Alumni with cancer push to be included in the case count
Former students like Sarah Glad and Tremaine Brittain believed there were far more cases than had initially been reported or known. Both received their master's degrees at NC State, both studied in Poe Hall – and both were diagnosed with breast cancer in their early 30s.
Both also knew of others who had spent time in Poe Hall and later developed cancer. For Glad, it was her best friend and fellow student, Rebekah Dunston, who was diagnosed with colon cancer at 33.
Brittain, who later worked at Poe Hall, knew of at least two other women who had breast cancer. Diagnosed at 34 and with no genetic predisposition, Brittain, now 43, never understood why she developed cancer so young.
"I couldn’t help but feel like it was somehow my fault," she said. "In an odd way, it was almost comforting to consider that the chemicals in Poe Hall might be to blame."
Health investigation ends without answers
Despite significant interest in the contamination and pressure from sick students and staff for answers, the investigation aimed at determining a possible link between the chemicals found in Poe Hall and the cancer cases among workers and alumni concluded without resolution in January 2024.
A letter sent from a federal health investigator claimed the "university did not want assistance from the Health Hazard Evaluation program" and added that it was unable to proceed with an investigation without the university's cooperation. NC State claimed that it simply wanted to pause the investigation while environmental consultants conducted more PCB testing of the building.
Historic votes of no confidence, NCSU re-requests health investigation
In February 2024, WRAL News reported that the university had quietly withdrawn from the health investigation. Instead, NC State announced it would put its focus in investigating the contamination in the building itself.
The university hired a law firm, which then retained a consulting firm to conduct additional PCB testing in Poe Hall. Records show NC State paid nearly half a million dollars for the testing and an additional $330,000 in attorneys' fees related to the building.
A university spokesperson stated that they could not comment on health concerns until more information about the building's contamination became available. The decision to end the sole investigation into the health of those who worked in Poe Hall sparked swift backlash.
Norwalk pleaded with the university to rejoin.
"Do right by your employees and get an independent investigation," she said. "That’s all we are asking for."
By the time the health evaluation had ended, Glad had lost her battle with breast cancer, which had spread to her brain. She died at 35 in late January. Her husband, Robbie Glad, told WRAL News that even though his wife was gone, he wanted to advocate for more answers from the university so others who could have been exposed to the chemicals in Poe Hall could take preventative steps to protect their health.
"I don't care about money; I do care about being able to help other people," he said.
Within a week of the report, faculty of the College of Education, which was housed by Poe Hall, passed unprecedented votes of no confidence against NC State's Chancellor Randy Woodson and Vice Chancellor Warwick Arden over their handling of Poe Hall.
While the votes were purely symbolic, they prompted action by the university. Email records obtained by WRAL News show that within hours of the vote, the university contacted federal health investigators and asked to reopen the Health Hazard Evaluation, which NIOSH agreed to do.
When the university decided to close Poe Hall, it initially notified only current workers and students with classes in the building. However, as news spread about the resumed Health Hazard Evaluation more alumni and former workers who had spent time in Poe Hall began reporting their cancer diagnoses and other illnesses to the university.
However, neither the university nor the state health department was collecting this information.
In response, many began reporting their diagnoses to WRAL News.
215 people report to WRAL they developed cancer after working or learning in Poe Hall
WRAL began taking down relevant data, including type of diagnosis, time spent in Poe Hall – as well as the year and age of diagnosis and where people spent time in the building. The goal was not to determine a link between the cancers and the building, but to understand the extent of how many people felt personally impacted by the situation.
By the end of February 2024, more than 100 people who worked or studied in the building had reported a cancer diagnosis to WRAL News. That number would continue to grow as alumni who had since moved away from the state learned about the situation.
In July, Chantalle Dugas received a text from her mom. It was a link to a news article about breast cancer cases among people who had studied or worked in Poe Hall. For Dugas, a Canadian living in Ontario, the story hit home.
"I immediately contacted my teammates and asked them why they hadn't told me," Dugas said.
The teammates she is referring to are members of the 2006–2010 NC State Wolfpack women’s soccer team, which Dugas captained while earning a degree in sociology. Dugas said she spent most of her time on the field or studying in Poe Hall. After graduating, she moved back to Canada, became the program director at a local Boys and Girls Club, and planned to start a family.
'They’re playing with people’s lives'
In 2020, those plans came to a halt. At 32 years old, Dugas was diagnosed with an aggressive but treatable form of breast cancer. She endured chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Although she is now in remission, she said the experience has left her with physical and emotional scars, including post-traumatic stress disorder.
"My breast will forever be deformed; the thought of having a family is completely out of the question. I am infertile because my body went through early menopause," Dugas said.
Dugas said she was stunned to learn that Poe Hall had been closed for eight months before she found out and was frustrated that the university hadn’t reached out to alumni directly.
"They’re playing with people’s lives. I think there should be some sort of urgency," Dugas said. "This is ridiculous."
By November 2024, after Poe Hall had closed, 215 people had reported to WRAL that they developed cancer after working or studying in Poe Hall.
More than 40 percent of the people reporting said they had breast cancer. Fifteen percent had a blood cancer diagnosis like leukemia or lymphomas. Others reported skin, lung, prostate, ovarian, colon, or thyroid cancer. Studies have linked most of the cancers reported to PCB exposure.
Of the 215 people more than 20 had already passed away, their cases were reported to WRAL by family members.
On average, individuals who reported a cancer diagnosis to WRAL spent seven years in the building.
The average age at which they were diagnosed was 44—more than 20 years younger than the national average age of diagnosis, which is 66, according to the National Cancer Institute.
WRAL News collaborated with a statistician and compared the 2022 breast cancer diagnosis rate in Poe Hall to the rate in the surrounding county and found that the Poe Hall rate was three times higher. Dr. David Carpenter, a professor at the University at Albany and a public health physician specializing in environmental causes of human disease, reviewed the finding.
"You have to view those as hypothesis-generating results, but I think if you have three times the rate of breast cancer, that’s very strong evidence," Carpenter said.
Contamination on every floor of Poe Hall, health investigation continues
In June, the consulting firm tasked with investigating the building released the findings of its testing.
The results revealed elevated levels of PCBs present on every floor of the building. The firm had taken bulk, air and surface wipe samples. It determined PCB laden sealant in the building's HVAC system to be in the likely culprit of the contamination. In some cases, samples of "bulk" materials showed extremely high levels of PCBs – sometimes hundreds of times higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency deems unsafe for human exposure. "Bulk" sampling is done by removing and testing a portion of the materials being investigated.
While air samples did not exceed the EPA's safety thresholds, Dr. Carpenter said that any detectable number of PCBs in the air poses a health risk, as these chemicals accumulate in the body over time.
Cases and contaminants
Dr. Carpenter, who received his MD from Harvard and has published more than 100 papers on PCBs, noted that the situation at Poe Hall was especially compelling given that not only were there elevated levels of cancer but that there was also a known contaminant.
"If you have a cancer cluster without an explanation of what could be causing it, that's very difficult – and I get involved with those all the time," he said.
"Right now, I'm working on a case involving people living around a landfill who have relatively high rates of cancer, but we don't know if it is due to contamination or if it's just by chance. In this case, we know what the contaminant is, we know what the cancer types are, and we would expect exposure to lead to those types of cancers."
NIOSH's investigation into potentially elevated levels of cancer in Poe Hall is ongoing. In October 2024, NIOSH investigators sent a letter to the North Carolina state health department asking for more information regarding the cases at Poe Hall.
"We are taking action to understand the occurrence of cancer among North Carolina State University employees who worked in the building," wrote Jessica Rinsky, an epidemiologist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Rinsky asked the state of North Carolina to cross-reference Poe Hall employees with the state’s cancer registry and provide local cancer data to determine if an excess of "specific cancer types" occurred among workers in Poe Hall.
The move marked a new step in the federal government's ongoing investigation into the safety of workers at Poe Hall—now taking a focused look at cancer rates and diagnoses potentially linked to the building.
A spokesperson for the state health department told WRAL News that it is "working to provide the information requested by NIOSH."
The update from the federal government was welcomed by people who have pushed for answers about the illnesses potentially connected to Poe Hall ever since the university abruptly shut down the building last year. However, the current investigation does not include students or alumni, who make up a large portion of the reported cases.
"Which is ridiculous," Norwalk said. "They deserve an investigation, too."
In a statement to WRAL News about the lack of investigation into student or alumni cases, the state health department said it is "worth noting that if there is an association between time spent in Poe Hall and rates of cancer, it is most likely to be seen" in workers – but added that the results of the NIOSH investigation could help inform what is necessary or possible in "investigating" cancer rates in students and alumni in the future.
A Health Hazard Evaluation typically takes 6 to 12 months to complete.
Future lawsuits and other illnesses
In November 2024, four local law firms banded together to take legal action against North Carolina State University and Monsanto, the main manufacturer of PCBs, over toxic contamination in Poe Hall.
Last year, students and workers at a Seattle-based school who developed cancer successfully sued Monsanto over PCB contamination, securing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
"We have hundreds of victims, some of whom have already passed away from horrible diseases," said Ben Whitley, an attorney with Whitley Law Firm.
The group plans to file lawsuits early next year against NC State and Monsanto.
Many others who spent time in Poe Hall have reported tumors, fertility problems and respiratory and skin issues.
Attorney Bryan Brice told WRAL News that most of their clients had significant exposure to Poe Hall over the years.
"Most of our folks were healthy, had no genetic cause for their illness or cancer, and lived healthy lifestyles. So, what was the cause? Maybe it was an environmental factor," Brice said.
Tiffany Frickey, an attorney with Edwards Kirby, explained that the attorneys carefully screen potential clients before agreeing to represent them.
"You have to figure out where they worked, what they were doing and how long they were exposed," she said.
"We're going up against a multibillion-dollar corporation and a huge institution, so we wanted to pool our resources to ensure that all of our clients have access to everything our firms can provide," Whitley said.
Pat Wallace, a partner at Milberg Law told WRAL News that legal action has become necessary to obtain answers and compensation for the many people who believe the building made them ill.
"Unfortunately, with a lot of big institutions and companies you need to go to them and assert yourself and assert your rights. No one is just going to come in and provide what you need," Wallace said.
"It's very obvious that NC State has not taken significant action to support and focus on the victims of Poe Hall. Their priority seems to be closing the building, repairing it, and remediating it, with little attention to the actual health and welfare of the people they were entrusted to protect. That's why we're doing this—to bring attention to these issues," he added.
A spokesperson for NC State university said:
"We acknowledge that people have health concerns; however, individual health and exposure questions are informed by many factors and are not something that NC State can address on a general or specific level. While we may not be able to comment directly on this information, we continue to encourage anyone with medical concerns to consult with their healthcare providers."
Norwalk, is now in remission and left her job at NC State. She, like many others including Brittian, Glad’s widow, Maiser, and Tuckmayer plan on participating in the future legal action.
WRAL News has created an interactive experience that takes you inside Poe Hall. See the rooms and areas where PCBs were found in the NC State building. You can view it here or by clicking the link above.
This experience is best viewed on a laptop or desktop computer.