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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.
Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. I've taken two dead deer and two dead cattle off this ripple. The blood run out of their noses and out of their mouths. They're trying to cover this stuff up. Wilbur Tennant.
Hi friends! I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Thank you so much for joining me in my lair. You know, oh my god, look at it. It's so cute. I'm so excited to be here. Welcome to my new podcast. It's called Dark History. So, you know, maybe you're wondering why Dark History? Well,
Over on my YouTube, you know, I do a series called Murder, Mystery, and Makeup, you know, where I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin. Well, I've always considered myself to be a little curious cat, meow, and over the last few years, while looking for true crime stories to talk about, I've come across so many stories throughout history that were just like, wow, almost unbelievable. Babe, this is murder, mystery, and makeup to the 10th degree. I mean, there were some wild shenanigans going down around
here. Things that make you wonder why in the world did nobody teach us this in school? Like I'm talking large corporations being shady as hell, genocide, birth control. Yeah, suspish. Zoot suit, syphilis. Oh, I'm talking about all the greats, baby. Syphilis? Greats. I said it.
Now, I don't know everything, of course. I'm not here trying to pretend I do. So I've been reaching out for some insight from experts across different fields to help get these stories from history straight. It's uncomfortable, but it's the truth and there's always so much to be learned from it. Okay, I will stop rambling and let's get into today's shady ass story.
So, not to start off super negative, but today's story affects all of us. I know it's kind of dramatic, but literally though. This happened to all of us and is still happening today. Today's story is about an experiment, a coverup, a poisoning.
Not really, but like I just had to add that in, you know? Anyways, this story is about what can happen when a company is left unchecked with power, control, and some shadiness going on. Imagine for a moment your backyard. If you don't have a backyard, okay, imagine that you're outside in a yard, okay? You see the grass, a beautiful stream, water, there's some rocks, the sun is streaming down on it all.
It's so beautiful. You enjoy this yard for many years. It's your yard, your own little personal heaven. There's cows a mooing, birds chirping. You get it. It's nice out.
Now imagine one day you step out onto your usual spot and you notice that the grass isn't as green as it used to be. The water in the stream isn't as clear as it once was. You don't hear the birds chirping, no cows mooing. There's now a darkness in your once happy spot. It's just not the same. Well this, my friends, is what happened to Wilbur Tennant.
In the 1980s, Wilbur had run his family farm with his siblings for years. Now they weren't like crazy wealthy people. These were small town cattle farmers. You know, they lived a simple kind of life. But what they did have was a lot of bills and a lot of land. Eventually, Wilbur's family had decided to sell off some of their land to a nearby company.
but they still ran the farm on the remaining property. It seemed like the right thing to do. They needed some money. It was a trusted company buying the land and they really didn't have anything to lose at that point besides the land, you know? So it just, it worked out for them. One morning in the early 1990s, Wilbur is walking around the farm. He's checking on his cattle. He's doing his thing, shaboop, shabap. Anyway, he's walking around his property and he notices something strange. There's a dead cow.
down near the lake, like, or the creek, whatever it's called, on his property. Now, it wasn't just normal dead. It was, like, all sorts of funky. The poor cow had blood and foam coming out of its mouth and its nose. It's pretty uncomfortable to look at, even for Wilbur, who's been around farm animals all of his life. He's seen a dead cow or two, you know, but he's never seen one that has died looking like that. So Wilbur got a little suspicious and starts paying closer attention to what's going on the farm. Now, Wilbur was putting some pieces together, okay?
Okay, it's like coming together in his mind. And realized that ever since the family sold part of their land to that company, you know, Wilbur's cows had started acting real unusual. Now, Wilbur never had issues with his cows acting out of hand, but he noticed some of the more gentle ones, they were becoming just really nasty and aggressive towards him. Yeah. Like the cows were just going crazy and just getting mad. Oh my gosh.
Not mad cow though, but they were getting mad. Anyways, some of the cows had weird gross on their bodies or lost patches of their hair. And then more and more cows started dying. They're just dropping like flies or...
Or cows, I guess. Either way, but it's just not making any sense to Wilbur. Nothing had changed. If anyone knows cows, it's Wilbur, okay? He's been working on a farm all of his life. Of course he knows cows. So Wilbur Tennant tries to find some answers. He goes to a local vet, but the vet suggests that maybe it's something Wilbur was feeding them like it had to be. He then goes to some lawyers, politicians, even journalists, because he feels that something bigger is going on.
but nobody will give him the time of day. No one will speak with him. No one will give him any help. So he's feeling frustrated, obviously. Like, great, love this for me, you know? Now at this point, Wilbur decides, you know, screw it. I'm just gonna do it myself. He decides to dissect the dead cows and he records the whole thing on VHS tapes for proof or it's for personal use. I don't know, I'm not judging. Either way, he's got the tapes.
tapes. During one of the dissections, he opened the mouth of a dead calf and discovered all of the teeth had completely gone black.
Yes. He examined internal organs and saw that some just didn't look right. They were the wrong color or the wrong texture. And Wilbur ended up dissecting quite a few cows and they all had something more going on inside of them. Wilbur knew he hadn't changed their diet and it couldn't have been something that he was doing. The only thing that had changed was the Tennant family selling some of their land to that company.
What company was it, you ask? Well, it was the biggest employer in their hometown. Let's welcome to the stage DuPont Chemicals.
Love it. Now, DuPont wasn't just the biggest company in their town. It was the wealthiest too. Anyone and everyone who lived in town worked for DuPont. Hell, even Wilbur's brother's name's Jim. He worked for DuPont. It was the pride and joy of their town. It's how like everyone made their money. So what the hell is DuPont Chemical? Wow. DuPont, I'm keeping it simple by the way.
DuPont made some groundbreaking materials like the iconic Teflon, Mylar, and Lycra. Now these names, they might sound familiar to you because like they're literally everywhere. Teflon is a coating that is used on non-stick pans to make them, you guessed it, you smart little cookie, non-sticky.
It was groundbreaking when Teflon came into the market. Now, Lycra is basically spandex, also groundbreaking, okay? And it's used for sports, clothing, bathing suits, that kind of thing, also changed lives. You know, all of your stretchy pants, Lycra.
So they are constantly innovating new ways to make material that is not natural. But when making chemicals, the process creates a lot of highly toxic waste. The kind of waste that would make you melt, like in the movie Roger Rabbit, remember? Remember when the guy melts? I think it was the cartoons that melts in the tar or something, but it was terrifying as a kid. I was terrified of that. Anyways, that's what I think of the chemical waste as personal opinion though. I don't know.
Anyways, so why did DuPont Chemical want the land anyway? It turned out that DuPont used the tenant farmland it bought as a landfill for the waste that was coming from its factory. People within the company, they named this area the Dry Run Landfill, which came from the name of the creek, the same creek that flowed into Wilbur Tennant's property, the same creek that these cows seem to be dying by.
Now ain't that some shit? Turns out, DuPont put in a large pipe that was pumping waste into Wilbur's Creek. Not just any waste, it was chaos.
waste. That's right. Could you imagine? The Tennant family fully believed that DuPont was putting poison in the water or some kind of chemical was coming from their plant and they had to know it. But over time, the family was getting more and more frustrated because no one seemed to care. No one seemed to show any interest as to what was happening. And a lot of people in the neighborhood, they rolled their eyes or ignored the family's claims because DuPont was, again, major for their town.
Like they didn't want to cause any drama, any problems between, you know, the town and DuPont. As far as they knew, it was between Wilbur and DuPont and nobody wanted any business with that. You know, they didn't want to ruffle any feathers. So finally...
Somebody recommends an environmental lawyer to the tenant family that they should contact. Now this lawyer was like the grandson of someone's friend of a friend and the tenants go out on a limb and they hope that this guy will work with them and shebang, that's how the tenants meet Attorney Rob Billet.
And this is where things...
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Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
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That's betterhelp.com slash dark history. Rob Billat was an environmental lawyer. He had just made partner at a law firm that pretty much only took on larger corporate clients. The law firm was called Taft, Stenius, and Hollister. I probably pronounced that wrong, but it's totally fine.
It's funny because this firm and these lawyers were the kind of people that chemical companies would typically hire to defend against accusations that the tenants might make. It's just kind of ironic, I guess, you know? Anyways, on top of that, DuPont had worked with this firm so many times before. So it almost seems like this is a bad idea for someone, you know, like Rob, who wants to help out the tenant family.
Now it doesn't make obvious business sense to take on a case against people who could potentially be your future clients, you know? But Rob had said that he had gotten into this specialty because he did want to do good in the world and he did want to make a difference. Plus something about Wilbur's story just had really interest him and Rob felt like he could really make a difference here. So that's nice. Aw.
Rob had a background specifically in compliance with Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA regulations. He would help his clients manage their waste safely, or at least lawfully, I should say. But the point is that he knew very well the laws in this space, what companies did put out toxic waste, where they put it, is that legal, you know, all that stuff.
So with all that knowledge, plus a ton of VHS tapes, photos, and documents the Tennant family had collected over the years, Rob DeLotte decided to take on the case against DuPont Chemical. And in the summer of 1999, Rob files a federal suit against DuPont Chemical in the Southern District of West Virginia. Now this is a big deal, okay? Wilbur starts to feel like this is finally gaining momentum.
right like he and his family are maybe finally going to get answers and get justice for what they've been through i mean they lost their farm well they didn't okay look they lost like all of their cattle and whatnot and that is how they made their money so you know they've lost it all pretty much is what i'm saying so wilbur is on a high he's like yeah we're doing it but then seconds later dupont's in-house lawyer is like
No, stop. Actually, we did a study and it turns out that all your cows dying was actually your fault. Not DuPont, sorry.
I mean, these lawyers are hired to protect this large corporation. What do you think they're gonna do? Just take responsibility? Oh, nay nay, nay nay, my friends, nay nay. DuPont's lawyer, his name is Bernard. So Bernard says that DuPont and the EPA had done a study together of the property next to the tenant's farm. Now they had six veterinarians, three that DuPont hired personally and three that the EPA hired. So that should be fair, right? But the study said,
according to Bernard and DuPont, that DuPont was not responsible for the deaths of the cows. These veterinarians said that Wilbur was responsible and had not given them proper care. So it was Wilbur's fault. He's like, get it together, Wilbur. That's not us, that's on you. They would go on to say that he was a bad friend
farmer. He mistreated his cattle, that he must be blaming DuPont for some kind of financial gain. That's selfish man him. I don't know what you're thinking. Wait, Bailey, I thought the EPA were the good guys. Nah, I'm just kidding. I know you don't know what the EPA is. So the Environmental Protection Agency, according to their website, is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters.
Super vague, but okay. Government agencies like the EPA have super close relationships with the companies and corporations in the same sector.
Usually these relationships involve money. And what I'm getting at is that the EPA was working alongside DuPont Chemical. You know, they had a super intimate relationship. The EPA is supposed to be on top of DuPont, making sure that they are following the rules when it comes to their toxic ass chemicals. But I don't know, we're asking too much of the EPA apparently.
So the tenants are feeling frustrated and also just really exhausted from all of this. They're facing a ton of backlash from the community because the family was going after DuPont. Do I have to tell you again? It keeps the town running. Like how dare they? So people are just not happy with them. It's just drama. Oh my gosh, we could do like a whole drama series on it. Expose. But the family said that they would end up having to switch churches four times during all of this due to people being super unwelcoming to the tenants. Love thine name.
Anyway, this study wasn't making any sense to Wilbur and his family and it felt a little suspicious. Like how did DuPont Chemical have this "study" ready so quickly? Did DuPont anticipate something like this might have happened and just had the study ready to go?
Well, back with Rob the lawyer, he decides to go hard through the massive amounts of papers, documents, records, VHS tapes from DuPont's files. Then one day while he's digging around doing his research, he finds a letter from DuPont to the EPA. Oh yeah.
It's worth like a second look, right? What is this? This is a little weird. In the letter, it was mentioned by DuPont that there was a chemical substance found at their Dry Run landfill site, the one near Wilbur, remember? Yeah, well, and this chemical substance was different. It was one that they had never recognized before. DuPont managed a ton of chemicals at their dump sites
all day, every day. So coming across a chemical that they didn't recognize was different. This substance was called PFOA. Rob, the lawyer, he's like, yeah, what is PFOA? Yeah, I know, what is PFOA? He can't find anything on it in his usual resources. Not the library, not lists of regulated materials. It's just nowhere to be found.
Finally, he gets in touch with a chemistry expert on the phone. He's like, bing, bing, hey, this expert tells Rob like, hey, I don't know what PFOA is. Okay, he's not familiar with it, but he was familiar with something similar, PFOS, which is the same thing, but it's like along the same lines, but it's not the same thing. It's so complicated, like chemistry is complicated and I'm not gonna try and like teach you chemistry right now, but it's kind of the same, same, okay? Okay.
Anyways, I think though that these companies, they use like all these acronyms, technical words, mumbo jumbo, because they don't want people like the tenants to understand what they're talking about. They don't want to even like rob the lawyer to understand. It's better for them to create confusion, make people think they're just stupid, or maybe that they just don't understand enough. But hey, what the hell do we know? So Rob...
the lawyer. He goes to DuPont and he asks like, what in the hell is PFOA? And that they needed to hand over all the information and materials related to PFOA. And DuPont's like, no, they refuse. Well, luckily Rob, he's a lawyer. So he files a court order, which is granted to get DuPont to share their documents. DuPont wins douche of the year because they sent over dozens of boxes filled to the brim with countless documents. Just like they wanted the paperwork to be confusing. They wanted the materials to be overwhelming,
This is how a company like DuPont can create darkness while seeming to operate in the light. They act like they're helping and doing the right thing. Here are the documents and all the evidence you need. Oh my God, we're amazing. You know, but the reality is they are bearing and hiding the truth, knowing that whoever goes looking for it really has to work hard to find it. The truth that is. This is what we're talking about. The truth. It's hard to find.
So it's now the year 2000 and Rob, the lawyer, he's been working hard sifting through all of these documents that DuPont Chemical had sent over. It's been months, months he's been going through all of the paperwork. Rob has been scanning and quickly reading the documents as best as he could. Eventually though, like just going through tons and tons of information, Rob comes across a document that showed DuPont knew that this chemical PFOA was indeed coming from DuPont and that
it was indeed dangerous. Not only were they acknowledging this, but it was clear to Rob that DuPont had known about this, like PFOA being dangerous, for a very long time.
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
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Your cash back really adds up. Now remember Teflon? Super iconic invention that made your food not stick to your pan. Groundbreaking. Well, in order to make Teflon, you need the magic chemical PFOA. And DuPont began using more and more PFOA. They were educated on the specific ways in which to dispose chemical. Like they were supposed to incinerate it or they were supposed to send it off to a specific chemical waste facility.
who then properly disposes it. Yeah, trying to get rid of waste is like a whole process. So yeah, they were told this. And of course, there's that warning section at the bottom, you know, when they're getting their education on that says like, hey, this chemical shouldn't be flushed away into water or sewers. But like nobody reads that far though.
you know? Anyway, so with all this information was found within the documents DuPont sent Rock, which also were revealing that DuPont Chemical had been pumping hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA powder from their Parkersburg facility into the Ohio River. And not only that, they had been pumping it into the river for decades.
Yeah, just putting it in the river. Cool. So what happens when a company pumps out that kind of like substance and it mixes with the water? Well, the tainted water goes through the pumps and lands into pits. Normally these pits would be lined for some protection, but the Parkersburg pits were not. Well, when there's like no protection down in the pit, the water then becomes one with the ground, the ground, the land, it absorbs the water.
And then when the tainted water from DuPont Chemical sat in those pits, it was absorbed right into the ground baby and it sank right into the local water supply, the drinking water supply for over 100,000 people in West Virginia. Now for Rob, the lawyer, this case went from the tenant family and their sad cows to now something that like affected a whole lot more people than they expected. It was clear that DuPont Chemical had all these instructions telling them how to get rid of PFOA properly and they just didn't follow them.
But Rob then found records showing DuPont Chemical had done their own funded top secret medical study on PFOA and its effects on people for 40 years. They know a lot. According to their own study, DuPont knew that PFOA could increase the size of liver in rats, rabbits, and dogs. They knew that their Parkersburg employee had high concentrations of PFOA in their blood. Oh, and they decided not to tell the EPA or anyone about it. No, they're just too busy.
DuPont knew PFOA could cause birth defects in rats. They ran tests on their employees' children. Yeah, yeah, that's right. They tested on children and they determined that two of seven live births resulted in eye defects. By 1991, DuPont Chemical had an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in water.
DuPont felt they knew how much could safely be in drinking water based on their own studies. But they didn't want to say what that safe number was. But they knew what it was. But they're not going to tell you what it was. It's like you're just playing games with a three-year-old. You know, it's just whatever this secret number was. DuPont learned that a local district had three times the secret number amount.
in their drinking water. There was just a ton of PFOA going on in the waters and nothing was said. Well, DuPont scientists found out that PFOA caused cancerous tumors in lab animals and might result in prostate cancer in humans. After this discovery, it was brought to DuPont's attention, but they did nothing with that information. They were like, okay, thanks. That's super helpful. No action was
DuPont had bought the tenant farmland to use as a place to dump their waste. Waste that they knew had the poisonous PFOA in it. They knew that it drained into the tenant's current property and they knew that the water in the shared creek had incredibly, insanely high concentrations of this poison. I'm gonna call it poison for a little while because that's what it is, okay? DuPont knew it all along and they still produced that garbage report blaming the death of the cows on just poor care.
What douche canoes. Rob Belot, the lawyer, he made his case. And in late 2000, the tenants came to a settlement agreement with DuPont Chemical. Rob got his fee and the case was closed before it ever reached trial. So is that it? Does this all go away quietly? Did the tenants get like, I don't know, some money to make up for the dead cows? And DuPont just gets to go on pumping that poison into the waters of West Virginia? Well.
When you really think about it, water just doesn't stop at state lines, you know? Like, water doesn't know what a state line is, so maybe this story would end there. But...
Once again, nay nay. Of course it does not. Now Rob, the lawyer, he was really angry. DuPont didn't just know about the poison. They had known about it for decades and they knew it was in the drinking supply. And they hid that from the government and they hid that from the public. In the year 2000, the manufacturer that they used to purchase PFOA from stopped making the substance.
So DuPont then started making it themselves and they just kept raking in the profits. So Rob tried to take this information public. He wrote a 972 page brief called for immediate regulations for clean water for those nearby. Now he sent this 972 page brief, which like, how was that brief? But okay.
But he sent all of that to the directors of all the regulatory agencies in the US. So I think the EPA, even the US Attorney General, DuPont requested a gag order, essentially confirming to the public that they didn't want this report to get out. And people began to think like,
you know, maybe there's something more to this damn story. Like maybe this is worth paying attention to. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.
It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.
So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.
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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.
Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?
BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash DarkHistory today to get 10% off your first month.
That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash dark history. Gag order was denied. I think the real question here is like, why do they call it a gag order? Because, I mean, it just sounds so violent. A gag? Oh my god.
Rob wanted this taken on across the country. This wasn't just going to hit DuPont. This would affect all the players in the industry making these man-made or synthetic materials. Most people in the United States, they thought, or we think, if something is dangerous, it's regulated.
But that wasn't true. Oh, and PS, it's still not true. But the 1976 Toxic Substance Control Act says that the EPA can only test chemicals when they are provided with proof that the chemicals cause harm. So what they're saying is they can't test it until they already know it's dangerous, which makes a lot of sense. But the EPA
EPA isn't even in the business of making and finding new chemicals or new materials. These large companies are the ones doing that, right? Like they're the ones making it. So the companies have that information. And because of this law, the companies control the EPA's access to the proof that it's dangerous.
You know what I'm saying? Like they can hide the proof of harm and avoid EPA testing and avoiding regulations. You know, they don't want to follow the rules or regulations because that would just cost them money. I mean, look how cheap they are. They won't even line their pits or properly dispose of the chemicals. I guess in order to make a lot of money, you have to cut a lot of corners. Greed is such an ugly color, isn't it?
In 2005, thanks to Rob, the lawyer, DuPont reached a $16.5 million settlement with the EPA after they were finally found in violation of the Toxic Substances Act. They paid the fine, which was the largest civil penalty the EPA had ever charged a company within its history. To someone like me and you, like, that seems like a lot of money, you know? Don't get me wrong. $16 million? Yeah, I'll take it.
That's a lot of money. But you and I both know, okay? You have to think about it, the bigger scale here. This is a giant company that made giant profits and they paid off that fine with less than 2% of what they made selling products that used PFOA in just that year, in just the year 2005. And they'd been making those profits for decades.
So Rob, he also filed a civil action lawsuit against DuPont Chemical. He had to prove that PFOA was not safe, that it was not at safe levels in the drinking water of the people he represented. And through his tenacity and creativity, he was able to get DuPont to settle September of 2004. Now the company agreed to install water filtration plants in the affected districts. And they also agreed to fund a study without limitations to determine if there was a probable cause
link between PFOA and diseases in human. Now, if the link was found, then DuPont also agreed to pay for medical monitoring for all of the affected groups in this lawsuit. The total settlement came to some of like $21.7 million, and the law firm didn't lose any money and the districts had clean water, but there was a lot more to do. The lawyers, with the votes of all the people they represented, used the settlement money for medical testing and research, all of which DuPont
had to foot the bill for totaling around $33 million. So they do this big medical research study and it ends up taking seven years. So friends, the scientific study took quite some time. And during that time,
a bunch of the class members, aka the people who were in the lawsuit, they were diagnosed with cancer, sadly. Wilbur Tennant was also diagnosed with cancer and then he would die from a heart attack. And then his wife, she also died of cancer two years later. The team of scientists began releasing results at the end of 2011. They found that there was a
probable link between PFOA exposure and get ready for this list. Kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, preeclampsia, alternative colitis, I nailed that one, pregnancy induced hypertension, and elevated cholesterol levels. So it seems like Rob, the lawyer, he finally had his proof.
PFOA was poison for sure. We should be calling this aqua to fauna and it was literally everywhere, okay? You might be thinking to yourself, oh man, that's super sad, super messed up. And like, thank goodness I don't live in West Virginia or like, thank God I wasn't around back then.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash Dark History today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Dark History. In 2002, the EPA found that it wasn't just drinking water, but also the general public at risk. Anyone who used Teflon pans to cook with, for example, what, the super iconic Teflon pans that were literally in every household also had PFOA? Yeah.
And it was being like cooked right into the food. You ate it. Not you, but like, you know, you might've, but not you. Anyways, the EPA also found out that PFOA had made its way into American blood banks. People were donating their blood, which very nice of them. We applaud them.
They didn't know that they had PFOA in their blood and it was donated. So then like PFOA is just like, it's raining PFOA. By 2003, it was estimated that the average American adult had a concentration of PFOA in their blood of four to five parts per billion. In America today, nearly every person is likely to have PFOA in their blood. Yes, it's in you.
Manufactured chemicals have been found in 94 different water districts across 27 different states and they've been found, PFOA, it's been found in the blood of salmon, swordfish, sea turtles, sea lions, polar bears. I mean, the list can really go on here, you know.
So new studies on these types of chemicals appear all the time, and the evidence continues to suggest that these man-made chemicals have complex effects. In 2014, it was found that breastfeeding is a major source of exposure. Other studies found that exposure during infancy is associated with immune deficiency. Now, researchers in Italy, let me tell you, they found a link between exposure to these chemicals and lower sperm counts, lower sperm ablations,
and shorter penises. Yeah, you heard me right. No need to rewind 15 seconds. Shorter penises. In October of 2016, 3,535 people filed personal injury lawsuits against DuPont Chemicals. The first actually to go to trial was Carla Bartlett, I believe.
who survived kidney cancer. Now she was awarded $1.6 million. The company would pay out an additional 670 million to 3,550 people who were exposed to PFOA. Eventually DuPont stopped producing and using PFOA in 2013. And the five other companies worldwide that used it also began phasing it out, which reminds me, I forgot to look up what those five other companies were. Oops, go Google it, let me know.
Anyways, so in 2015, DuPont made a new corporation called Chemers. And now Chemers uses a similar different compound that is supposed to biodegrade at a faster pace. Eye roll, sure. Which they knew about this quote unquote safer compound for more than 20 years. But of course it took the lawsuits, the EPA, national attention to make them think like, hey, maybe we should make the switch. Maybe we should care or protect ourselves.
This alternative compound, by the way, unregulated. Yeah, said it, unregulated. So no idea if it's actually safe or not. And they've given us no reason to believe them. So once again, cool, love that.
But don't worry, you guys, don't freak out, 'cause Kemmers, AKA DuPont, they say it's totally safe. It doesn't seem like Rob, the lawyer, believes them either. Every single year, Rob writes a letter to the EPA urging regulation of PFOA in drinking water.
They have an advisory setting for these levels, but that is all and like nobody knows what that means. Do you know what that means? No, exactly. Nobody knows what that means. Nobody knows. In 2016, Rob told the New York Times, quote, "We told the agencies about this in 2001, and they've essentially done nothing.
That's 14 years of this stuff continuing to be used, continuing to be in the drinking water all over the country. DuPont just quietly switches over to the next substance, end quote. Chemers, which operates and runs the original facility in Parkersburg, still produces products to make Teflon. I'm laughing because like, yeah, they're still making them. Like, oh yeah, babe, it's all around you. Turn around right now. It's PFOA. It's right behind you. You know, like...
It's everywhere. They're still producing it and still dumping it away. Oh, and more DuPont spinoff companies are out there like Dow Inc. It's like we're in some weird twilight zone, you know? So people were concerned and following closely the DuPont chemical case, but the message so far was DuPont did something bad. They
They did some testing and like found a backup or they changed their name, moved things around and no one went to jail, the end. You know, like that's what the story was. So anyways, these corporations learned the true power or true lack of powers
that regulatory agencies have in the United States and in a world that mistrusts science, underfunds research, and allows for people to bounce back and forth between government jobs and corporate jobs in the same field. What chances do we have to stop the next DuPont chemical disaster? I mean, it's probably already happened, shit. Unfortunately, bad news for us, uh,
Different variations of this poison are still in our drinking water. Yes, we are poisoned. And it's in everyday materials that you think of as second nature. Remember how I mentioned the story affects you? Well, it does. Because you have a very high chance of having PFOA in your blood. To keep it simple, our body just doesn't have the ability to break down.
down the chemical. And when you really think about it, isn't that gross? Because of DuPont, you have this thing in you, right? And like, you would think that would make more noise, you know? If the EPA couldn't or wouldn't stop DuPont, well, what can we do about it, you know? Like, who the hell are we? And these large corporations, they're just clearly making us ill. What can we do about it? I personally really admire Rob, the lawyer.
Wilbur and the tenants for their bravery to go after a large company like DuPont. I mean, that's ballsy. That takes some serious balls. Also for the years of dedication to seeking justice and for seeking the truth. I'm a sucker for a good old fashioned David and Goliath type story, but I wish I could say like the little guy won here, but we did not. DuPont is a good example as how important
It is to push for actual environmental regulations, not just to save the trees or the whales. I mean, yeah, those things are great. Of course, we want to save those. But literally to protect yourself from these large corporations who want to take advantage of us and our bodies, plus the lands that we live on.
Look, you don't deserve to get poisoned over eggs not sticking to your pan. I just quickly want to take this moment and give a big thank you to DuPont Chemical for all of their beautiful secrets that have affected all of us. I appreciate that.
Oh, also guys, you can totally blame your small, you know, your small member on DuPont. Just saying, it's an opportunity. When I first read about this story, I found it super fascinating because Rob uncovered a pretty large secret, right? DuPont was poisoning the water and all of us with the chemicals in their products. This was proven. This was proven.
and nothing happened. Why? This question literally keeps me up at night. We have these chemicals in our blood from products that we've been sold and they've been proven to make people sick. I mean, isn't that enough? You would think, right? Isn't that a bit concerning to anybody? You know, what do we do with this information? And honestly, I think that's a great question.
I guess step one is bringing awareness, right? But if DuPont got away with poisoning all of us for so long, what could everyone else be hiding? And what can we do to stop this from happening again? I wanna know, 'cause we need some answers here. We need a plan. Let's continue this conversation. Hop on over to Twitter using the hashtag dark history and let me know what you think. Anyways, if you enjoyed this story, join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes after the podcast airs
and also catch my murder mystery and makeup, which drops every Monday. Now I told you today would be a little dark. It's in the title, so just get over it, okay? Anyways, thank you guys so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Try to get some sleep tonight, even though you've been poisoned. And I'll talk to you next week. Bye. Bye.
Dark History is an Audioboom original. Executive producers include Chelsea Durgin from Slash Management and Brent Montgomery, Ed Simpson, Fanny Badri, Afi Gandhi, and Daryl Christian from Wheelhouse. Video directors Trent Barbosa and Spencer Strathmore. Producer Lexi Kiven. Research provided by Elizabeth Hyman. Written by Sarah Camino and Haley Gordon. And hosted by me, Princess of the Dark, Bailey Sarian.
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