Poison Ground

You might recall an October court case in which an Ohio woman was awarded $1.6 million for contracting kidney cancer due to exposure to chemicals from the nearby DuPont manufacturing plant.  It was the first of what will be over 3500 such cases.

What follows in the link below is the story of a fluoropolymer known as C8 (or PFOA), used in the making of coatings like Teflon.  It's the story of how DuPont hid this chemical's hazardous toxicity for over forty years.  It's the story of a diligent Cincinnati lawyer who successfully brought suit against the chemical giant.

The article, written by Nathaniel Rich, is rather lengthy but the tale is so engrossing and so well-written, it turns out to be a pretty quick read.  It's worth your time, and I highly recommend it.

I especially recommend it to any of you who, in your semi-libertarian way, complain about all those business-stifling, job-killing government regulations.  Read this article and think again.  Then think about the methane cloud over Porter Ranch, California, and the lead-poisoned water in Flint, Michigan, and all the fabulous fracking happening everywhere.

Then tell me again about how all those rules and regs are so unnecessary.
______________________________________________

Excerpt:

If you are a sentient being reading this article in 2016, you already have PFOA in your blood.  It is in your parents' blood, your children's blood, your lover's blood.  How did it get there?  Through the air, through your diet, through the use of non-stick cookware, through your umbilical cord.  Or you might have drunk tainted water.  Manufactured fluorochemicals are present in 94  water districts across 27 states.

Where scientists have tested for the presence of PFOA, they have found it.  PFOA is in the blood or vital organs of Atlantic salmon, swordfish, striped mullet, gray seals, common cormorants, Alaskan polar bears, brown pelicans, sea turtles, sea eagles, midwestern bald eagles, California sea lions and even Laysan albatrosses on Sand Island, a wildlife refuge on Midway Atoll, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, about halfway between North America and Asia.

"We've pulled the cap off something here.  But it's not just DuPont.  Good God.  There are 60,000 unregulated chemicals out there right now.  We have no idea what we're taking."

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/magazine/the-lawyer-who-became-duponts-worst-nightmare.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fmagazine&action=click&contentCollection=magazine&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=10&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0