An independent panel of three epidemiologists have concluded that exposure to the manufacturing substance known as C8 or PFOA is linked to two types of cancer in Mid Ohio Valley residents.

The C8 Science Panel released their new findings on Monday morning. It‘s the latest development in the class action lawsuit brought by local residents against DuPont over the presence of the manufacturing chemical PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, in their drinking water. As a result of the findings, a medical panel has been established to determine what type of medical monitoring is appropriate for class members.

The class action lawsuit involved residents who lived in areas served by six public water supplies including Belpre, Pomeroy, Tuppers Plains, Little Hocking, Mason County, Ohio and Lubeck, West Virginia. However, since that time, C8 has reportedly been found along every mile of the Ohio River.

What began as the C8 Health Project has become the largest study ever undertaken to determine the link between PFOA exposure and cancer. An analysis of 21 types of cancer yielded two probable link findings.

The Science Panel, Dr. Kyle Steenland, Dr. Tony Fletcher, and Dr. David Savitz, mapped the areas of analysis to reveal a trend across exposure groups. Fletcher said the groups with the highest exposure exhibited the highest risk of testicular and kidney cancer.

“The trend of increase is quite strong,” explained Steenland, who described the trend as “unlikely due to chance or bias”.

A similar trend was observed with prostate cancer, but fewer cases of the disease were involved in the study.

Fletcher said the newly released information is supported by earlier findings of studies performed on workers and effects observed in lab animals.

Through the review of medical records and the state cancer registry, the panel validated 2,420 diagnoses of primary cancer. Based on past emissions from DuPont and the residential history of study subjects, the panel estimated the levels of C8 in the blood of study subjects over time. They found a “reasonably consistent and strong relationship” between past exposure and testicular and kidney cancer — both considered rare diseases. Science panel data included 19 confirmed cases of testicular cancer and 113 confirmed cases of kidney cancer.

Steenland warned that there are “limitations that should be recognized”. For instance, participants displayed only a few cases of certain cancers like pancreatic and liver cancers, so there may have been inadequate data for a probable link finding. However, in the case of breast cancer, Steenland said there was plenty of information to draw a conclusion, but no link was found.

Other findings released Monday revealed no probable link between the onset of adult diabetes and C8 exposure.

Last December, the Science Panel announced their first probable link finding – tying pregnancy-induced hypertension to C8 exposure.

The C8 Science Panel will complete their work and release the remainder of their findings by the end of July. However, it seems likely that scientific research related to the data will continue.

“We believe this population should be followed over time,” Steenland said.

According to class counsel Harry Deitzler, class members who already suffer from linked diseases are now permitted to pursue personal injury or wrongful death claims against DuPont related to those specific diseases. 

“We are pleased that the community now has some definitive answers to their concerns about whether they have been put at risk for serious adverse health effects because of their exposure to PFOA in their drinking water,” said Rob Bilott, class counsel.

The next day Kevin Thompson participated in a panel on THE MASSEY COAL LITIGATION: COAL SLURRY CONTAMINATION IN RAWL, WV. This is case involving the preacher Larry Brown for those of you have seen Toxic Soup. For those of you who haven’t seen the doc yet it is slated to be live on HULU with the next two weeks. Or you can stream it right now through Distrify; DVDs are also available on amazon.com as well as directly on the website.

You may remember that he Upper Big Branch mine disaster claimed the lives of 29 miners and, in the end, humbled Massey Energy and its controversial CEO Don Blankenship. Daring to confront the company known in the coalfields for its “no-holds-barred” litigation tactics, Kevin Thompson and several other attorneys sued Massey for contaminating the well water of 700+ residents of a rural West Virginia community with billions of gallons of improperly disposed toxic coal slurry. After 7 years of litigation, the case was settled days before trial last summer, but only after a judge was recused and the case assigned by the WV Supreme Court to a Mass Litigation Panel.

Kevin Thompson, Plaintiff’s Attorney in Rawl case; Dr. Stephen King, Toxicologist, Manager of Toxicology, Inc.; Stephen Wussow, Senior Research Analyst, Thompson, Barney Law

On Friday, March 2nd at 7 pm Toxic Soup will be screening in New Orleans at Tulane University as part of Tulane’s 17th annual environmental summit. Director Rory Owen Delaney will be on hand for a Q + A after the screening.

On Monday, April 2nd, Toxic Soup will be screening in Chicago at Northeastern Illinois University. The screening will be hosted by the college radio station WZRD. Unfortunately, director Rory Owen Delaney will not be able to attend but he will do a radio interview before the screening. More details on the interview later.

The Northeastern Illinois University screening is FREE and open to the public, but seating capacity is only for 70 people so please come early! Toxic Soup will be screening in room SU003 in the NEIU CAFE. Northeastern Illinois University is located at 5500 North St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

Included in the photos below: toxic waste is released into a body of water along the Ohio River in Marietta, Ohio; Larry Gibson reveals the destruction caused by Mountaintop Removal mining atop Kayford Mountain, the land that has been in his family for over 100 years.

The residents of Redbush, Kentucky display “Mr. Pickles”, a mutated cat with six legs, two heads and two tails, in a bottle container that is kept hidden in the community where the water is contaminated.

Environmental attorney Kevin Thompson discovers radioactive oil that has been planted in the ground by Ashland Oil as a part of a “clean-up “operation.

Environmental safety officer, Wade Smith, inspects the radioactive oil fields in Eastern, Kentucky where the levels of radiation are 100 times above standard levels due to the negligence of oil production companies in the area.

Pipes spewing toxic waste into a body of water along the Ohio River

Mountain Top Removal view from Kayford Mountain

Mr. Pickles, the mutated cat with six legs, two heads and two tails

Environmental Attorney Kevin Thompson discovers radioactive oil in Redbush Kentucky

Environmental Safety Officer Wade Smith inspects radioactive oil sites in Eastern Kentucky

There is a link between C8 exposure and human disease, according to the C8 Science Panel who released their first set of probable link findings this week. The panel determined that there is a link between exposure to PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, and pregnancy-induced hypertension.

This is significant because the development triggers the next phase of settlement in the class action lawsuit brought by Mid Ohio Valley residents against DuPont over the presence of the manmade chemical in several public water supplies. DuPont has used C8 for more than fifty years at Washington Works near Parkersburg, W.Va., in the manufacture of Teflon and many other consumer applications.

The panel’s determination was based on data from the C8 Health Project and four related studies which identified more than 3,000 cases of pregnancy-induced hypertension in exposed populations. Similarly, a link was detected between C8 exposure and preeclampsia.

The panel did not find a probable link between C8 exposure and pregnancy loss, low birth weight, or birth defects.

Dr. David Savitz explained the panel’s findings, calling pregnancy-induced hypertension a “serious complication of pregnancy” and one that is known to increase the risk of preterm birth.

While the condition typically resolves with the birth of the baby, Savitz said women who develop high blood pressure during pregnancy are at an increased risk of having it again with subsequent pregnancies. He said pregnancy-induced hypertension is also a “predictor” of problems later in life.

Even so, Savitz said the number one cause of pregnancy-induced hypertension is obesity, which is something that can be more directly addressed by women of childbearing age. He also encouraged expectant mothers to fully participate in prenatal care – and to follow the advice of their doctors.

The term “probable link” is court terminology, not scientific jargon. Specifically, the C8 Science Panel was appointed for the purpose of determining whether, given the available scientific evidence, there is more likely than not a connection between PFOA exposure and human disease in class members.

As a result of the panel’s findings, a medical panel will be established to determine whether medical monitoring is called for under the terms of the settlement. At the conclusion of the suit, if a “probable link” has been found, the settlement agreement provides for $235 million to be paid out by DuPont for medical monitoring.

The C8 Science Panel is expected to release two more sets of findings before concluding their work in July 2012.

DuPont officials say they do not believe that PFOA causes pregnancy-induced hypertension, but they will move forward with their obligations under the settlement agreement.

“DuPont has committed to no longer make, buy or use PFOA by 2015, or sooner if possible,” company officials said in a statement. “We have made significant progress toward this commitment, including commercializing next-generation offerings that are made without using PFOA, and that cannot break down to PFOA in the environment.”

The company has requested a permit change in order to replace the controversial manufacturing substance. Documents obtained from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection indicate the new substance intended for use in fluoropolymer production is called by the trade name C3. In the permit application, DuPont calls the new technology a “sustainable solution that includes a new processing aid with a favorable toxicological profile and rapid bioelimination”.

Little else is known about the substance. DuPont’s permit, if it is successful, would allow C3 to be discharged into the Ohio River. WVDEP is accepting public comments on the matter until December 26.

A civil lawsuit was filed on Friday, April 9th, 2010 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that contamination at the 300-unit Ujima Village complex built on a former oil tank storage site caused 38 deaths and hundreds of cases of cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, respiratory distress, chronic infections, asthma, anemia and cognitive and neurological issues.

For decades, low-income, hard-working citizens of Los Angeles, mostly African American, raised their families in a government-run housing complex that made them sick. The air, the soil and the water at the site gave them cancer.

It gave them emphysema and anemia. It gave them asthma. It caused an unusually high number of miscarriages. It caused inexplicable itchy sores on their bodies. Although the housing development has been closed, it still causes people to lie awake at night wondering, “Are my children safe? Am I going to die?”

And every time the residents asked if they were safe, if the water was drinkable, if the air was clean enough to breathe, they were told by government officials that nothing was wrong.

But those officials were lying. The government knew the area was filled with deadly toxins, but it never told the people who lived there. Instead, it ignored the advice of every expert who tested the air and soil and concluded it was unsafe, and relied on the findings of the one company the said it was safe. But that company was bought and paid for by Exxon, the world’s largest oil company who originally polluted the soil.

Instead of acting to protect the residents, government officials denied the health hazards existed and neglected the residents. The agencies that could have provided oversight and protection came onto the scene far too late to be effective.

The agencies who oversaw the housing complex could have prevented the death and illnesses that resulted. Their responses to the problem were ineffective.

This is a tragic story of environmental injustice ignored by the governments that could have protected their citizens.

In Danny’s own words, CARBON covers an original civilization before ours on the tipping point of extinction, and asks what — if anything — livable we will leave behind on our current course.

And who can save us from this most cataclysmic disaster in our human history? A courageous group of West Virginia coal miners and their community. These unlikely heroes are mankind’s only hope on this edge of the end of the world.

I have contracted two of the best graphic novel artists in the world to help me bring CARBON to life in illustrator, Edi Guedes, and colorist, Alzir Alves, of Rascunho Studio in Brazil. And right here in Charleston, world-class letterer, Jason Arthur.

Upon completion, CARBON will be shopped to major publishers. Our first graphic novel, CHILLERS, will be released by a national publisher next year (details TBA soon) so I am confident that CARBON will have significant publication as well.

We have donated to Danny’s graphic novel and we encourage you to do the same! It makes a great Christmas present. Happy Holidays!