In Sickness And in Stealth

The radar-invisible Stealth warplanes can hide in the sky, thanks in part to special materials and chemical coatings that do not reflect radar pulses. But these materials make workers ill — or so claim scores of employees at Lockheed’s Burbank, Calif., plant, home of Stealth. In a lawsuit, the workers complain that a panoply of ailments — rashes, aches and pains, nausea, memory loss — is being caused by unknown toxic agents in Stealth materials. Lockheed vice president John Brizendine insists that “we have seen nothing to indicate the materials we work with . . . pose a health hazard, providing proper procedures are followed.” Nonetheless, two teams of federal investigators are poking around the Burbank plant.