[birds chirping]
[water running]
[man on tape] The state of West Virginia,
issued the DuPont company a permit,
for them to run their contaminated waste water,
down through two farms here, out into this stream of water,
[camera flashes]
This is, uh, 151 of these animals,
that died on this farm up here, since this stuff's been coming down through this water,
And they wanna try and keep everything hushed up,
Like it is some kind of big secret of some kind, that they're dumping it in here,
They won't tell us what it is,
They don't wanna talk to me,
Because I'm just an old dumb farmer,
I'm not supposed to know anything,
But it's not gonna be covered up,
because I'm gonna bring it out in the open for people to see,
[man] American production has become the most efficient in the world,
And as a result, all factories and industrial plants
are turning out an ever increasing amount of goods,
Things that people want and need,
DuPont research chemists developed a new and unique white substance,
The result is the greatest advance in cookware,
DuPont Teflon,
There are two different types of fry pans,
This non-stick finish for cookware never needs scouring,
All kinds of burnt foods come out quickly and easily,
[man] Corn muffins don't stick to Teflon,
[eggs sizzling]
Fudge cakes don't stick to Teflon,
Even sticky buns don't stick to Teflon,
Almost nothing sticks to it,
DuPont Teflon saves me lots of dirty work,
It's so easy to clean,
This seal means DuPont has approved finish,
there is no stick and it's easy to clean,
[man 1] So look for the Teflon DuPont seal,
-[man 2] Look for the seal, -[woman] Look for the seal,
[man 3] Look for this sticker,
[man] Well, it sounds great but is it really safe to cook in?
[Sue Bailey] I was working,
And I had made an arrangement for you guys to get your picture taken,
-[Bucky] This one,,, This one right here? -[Sue] Mmm-hmm,
[Bucky] I always tell with this picture, It just,,,
[laughing]
[Bucky] I just look at this and I just,,,
This is William Bailey III, Buck,
You were six years old, You went to Jeb Stuart Middle school,
In kindergarten, '86 and '87,
I just,,, I don't know, I feel so bad for that kid,
Yeah, not because of anything you,,, Just because,,,
The times were hard, I knew you guys were working as hard as you could,
And I'm wearing a velvet green shirt, you know?
Uh, I just remember, it was my first year of school,
That I actually went to school with kids,
-And I stood out, -Yeah,
That was when you were first born,
How long do they wait to take pictures?
I'm sure they wanted to get that one taken right away because--
There was chance that I might not make it,
That's what they said,
[Sue] When Bucky was born, I went into shock,
He was born with half of a nose, one nostril,
a serrated eyelid,
and a keyhole pupil where the iris and retina is not connected,
You could tell he was in distress,
because he couldn't breathe really well,
I was scared to death to hold that baby,
I was scared he was gonna die in my arms,
Your dad didn't stay with me that night, I didn't want him to,
We just, each one of us wanted to be just alone with our thoughts,
You know,
And he, you know,,, He didn't know whether to go with you,,,
[crying] Or stay with me,
When I was pregnant with Bucky,
I worked for DuPont around Teflon,
They tried to blame me, they said it was something that I did,
And the more they would tell me that, the more suspicious I got,
But I didn't know what I'd been exposed to,
And the first day that I went back to work,
someone in our locker room said a girl that worked there,
had a baby that had deformities,
We got to talking about it,
It was just like Bucky,
She worked around Teflon too,
[car engine starting]
♪ May the good Lord bless and keep you ♪
♪ Whether near or far away ♪
Those traditional ones,
I like that song,
My dad used to sing to my mom,
She'd get about half t'd off at him,
He'd had a little beer,
♪ You are my sunshine ♪
♪ My only sunshine ♪
He could make her cry,
I'm from Parkersburg, West Virginia,
Been here all my life,
I ended up getting married, having children and settling down in this area,
I started with DuPont, 1962,
And I was there almost 40 years,
In Teflon land,
[door opens]
First time I heard that Teflon might be dangerous,
I was told by a supervisor,
We feared that it might be detrimental to the women who are pregnant,
So we sent all the women home but it won't hurt the men,
That's the first time I,,, And I questioned him,
I said, "It won't hurt the men?"
He said, "Oh, no, Ken, don't worry about it," As far as we know,
Can I have another bottle of that B12?
It's one of those,
-Yeah, we have the 50, -This will do it,
You didn't have Colostrum, do you?
-You didn't have that day, -[man] Yes, we do,
That's the thing,,, When I was going through the cancer real bad,
I started taking Colostrum,
And it helped me get through all the surgeries, and all,,,
I couldn't hardly get out the chair, I was so weak,
[Sue] Well, when they removed the women from Teflon it was a big shock to me,
They just don't do that,
I knew right then it was a big cover up,
And see, all that time when I was pregnant,
I was in direct contact with the chemicals,
I did tell 'em, I told 'em right to their face,
I said, "I know you're responsible for it,
And you've lied", and they're still lying,
But I knew I couldn't quit because I needed the insurance,
Bucky needed help right then,
[Bucky] The first surgery I had, they,,, They had on my eye,
From the time I was a few months old to five years old,
I probably had about 30 surgeries,
Initially, I accepted it and I just thought I was dealt a bad hand,
I mean, I cared about what I looked like, obviously,
I looked in the mirror every single day,
So there were things I cared about my appearance,
But my parents were pretty,,, They wanted me to be cool with who I was,
[Sue] Back off of you little bit,
And here's a handsome looking guy,
[chuckles]
-Be 13, January the 15th, -January the 15th,
Thirteen years old,
[Bucky] I remember walking into seventh grade for the first day of school,
and every person just looking at me,
I was like, "This is awesome,,, This is great, yeah,"
[Sue] Bucky's playing with the video game,
And then going through the next phase of surgery where I had
a balloon implanted into my forehead,
and they would fill that up with saline to stretch the skin,
Which they would bring down and you know, use for my nose,
There is no pain that I've ever gone through that was greater than that,
I mean, migraine times a thousand,
To go home and to have that pain and for my dad to walk in and say,
"Hey, get up, put your hat on, we're going out,"
And I'm like, "I'm not going out, Dad, I just got out of the hospital,
You know, I'm not leaving, look at me, Dad,"
He's like, "You look fine,"
He's like, "Look we're gonna go out,"
He's like, "You know, the shoes you wanted, those Airwalks you wanted?"
He's like, "Let's go,,, Let's go pick out a pair,"
And you know just,,,
[crying] Just thinking about how he never gave up,
You know, he always pushed me,
[man] Easy, easy,
[Bucky] He never wanted me to sulk,
I'm cool,
He never wanted me to be down on who I was,
And my mom was the same way,
They never let me just be affected by it,
They were always leading me through it,
You know, it really didn't bug me too much growing up as a kid,
I was just worried about you know, making it through the next day in school,
But it was kind of coming to a point when I was 18-19,
I stopped thinking about how I had been dealt a bad hand,
and that was just my lot in life,
Just thinking about, "I need an answer,"
You know, "I need to know what's going on,
I need to know why this happened,"
I want you to notice his height,
I want you to notice what his eyes look like,
They're born that way,
Now, I never saw nothing like this in my life,
It's very unusual,
Wilbur Tennant was a farmer who sold part of his land to DuPont,
The piece that DuPont had was adjacent to his property that he continued to own,
In their negotiations around this, they said,
that they were gonna use his land for non-hazardous waste,
But very quickly he noticed changes in the water,
[Wilbur] This is what I've been talking about,
We haven't had any rain for several days,
This sud has been here for a while,
[Lerner] And he noticed that little things, little fish began to die,
And he began to find dead animals,
[Wilbur] I've taken dead deer and dead cattle off this river right here,
And every veterinarian that I've called
will not return my phone calls or they don't want to get involved,
[indistinct chatter]
[Mike Papantanio] We are now on the record and our time is 9:01 am,
Our opponent today is Bernard J, Reilly,
Our court reporter is Michelle Grey, who will now swear in,
[Michelle] Can you please raise you right hand and swear the testimony you are about
to give is the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?
Yes, I do,
[Papantonio] Let's look at LP-2,
[Reilly] Yeah, this is to Tom Adams,
[Papantonio] Who's Tom Adams?
-He's an old friend I met in the army, -[Papantonio] Mmm-hmm,
Okay, so let's go ahead and read,
"The shit is about to hit the fan in West Virginia,"
Go ahead why don't you read it because you wrote it,
Sure,
"The shit is about to hit the fan in West Virginia, WV,
the lawyer for the farmer finally realizes the surfactant issue,
He is threatening to go to the press to embarrass us to pressure for big bucks,"
You want me to read the bad word?
[Papantonio] Yeah, it says, "Fuck him,"
That's what it says,
I apologize to anybody that's sensitive about bad words,
Well, you wrote it,
-I was writing to an old army friend, -Right,
Every case, in a complex case, there's several parts to it,
One part is the work up,
That means finding the documents,
It means trying to take some basic depositions to find out who did what,
Why did they do certain things? How did they do certain things?
That's called the discovery process,
The documents in this case,,,
They really tell the story about what the company knew,
Isn't it a good thing the company kept this?
'Cause we can go back and look at history, It is a good thing,
that they kept these documents, isn't it?
You are saying its a good thing?
Mr, Papantonio, you can frame that any way you want,
The back story of this case is interesting,
It started with a lawyer named Rob Bilott,
he's a corporate defense lawyer by trade,
And so this corporate defense lawyer gets this case and he starts looking at it,
[Bilott] When we got into the litigation with DuPont,
we got access to a lot of the internal documents,
And we found out that DuPont and another company called 3M had been studying this chemical
dating back to the 1950s and 1960s,
[Papantonio] Dr Karrh you're being handed exhibit 30,
I ask you to take a look at that and tell me if you can identify this document,
[Karrh] Yes, I can,
[reading document]
[Papantonio] The heart of the case is, this plant in West Virginia,
they make Teflon, they make Teflon that is used for all types of sources,
C-8 is one of the elements they need to make Teflon,
PFOS, PFOA, C-8, these are all names for this group of miracle chemicals,
that came out of primarily 3M, initially, and out of DuPont,
[Glenn Evers] I started at DuPont, 1981,
Most of my career was spent in the new product development end,
Teflon is a very generic term,
The active ingredient in it is Fluorine,
You hear the word F in that right?
PFOA, PFOS, anything with the F in it,
It is something you want to be very weary of,
These chemicals have these wondrous properties,
Non-stick, oil repellent, Water repellent,
[Papantonio] How do you recall C-8 first coming to your attention?
The first recollection I have of it is when
the supplier of the chemical, the 3M company,
provided DuPont with some information about rats
that had been subjected to exposure of the chemical,
[Papantonio] 3M had some test data,
indicating potential birth defects here, in the eyes of rat fetuses,
following exposure to C-8, correct?
That's correct,
So you did see? There was a substantial risk,
to the women at the DuPont plant who were exposed to C-8,
Enough to remove them from further exposure, correct?
No, No, No,
There was no potential risk to the women,
Based on the 3M study there was potential risk to the fetus,
[Reilly] "Parker has brought WV another long meeting
to describe to the plant folks where the guy who is
suing us over his cattle grazing downstream,
of our landfill would crucify us before a jury,
Most simply do not believe how big and bad we would look,
and how sympathetic a farmer would look before a jury,
even though he is a con man,"
[Papantonio] You calling Mr, Tennant a con man?
This is a letter to my son I can tell you,
But are you calling him a con man?
To his face,
And when you called him a con man, did you know how many of his cattle had died?
The short answer is I did not know how many of his cattle had died,
[Lerner] Within a couple of years his entire herd died,
For Tennant, it was his livelihood,
"Advantages of settling," Do you see that?
[Kathleen Forte] Yes,
"It says C-8, in the stream, we never told them,"
Right? See that?
That's what it says,
[man] When did you first become involved with APFO or C-8?
I was first aware of it prior to 1977,
Knowing that,,,
Perfluorinated materials had been found in human blood,
[Cook] At first, 3M and DuPont were checking to see
the contamination levels of their workers,
And so naturally they needed a control,
They needed to compare those workers blood levels of C-8 with the population,
So they could see what the difference was,
So they started going to archived bloody supplies,
and checking to see what clean blood
versus the blood of their workers might look like,
There was no clean blood,
They tested kids, they tested adults, they went to Asia,
They went all over the world and everywhere they looked practically,
they found their chemicals in people's blood,
Eventually, they did find some clean blood,
It turned out it was the blood that had been taken,
from army recruits and archived, saved, at the start of the Korean War,
That blood was clean because the Teflon chemicals
weren't out into the environment at that point,
The main sources of exposure are still something of a mystery,
The likely culprits though are industrial waste,
and the consumer products that shed this material over time,
Today, every baby probably on the planet,
but certainly in the developed world,
where all of these chemicals are widely used,
every baby is born with at least some level,
of C-8, of PFOS and PFOA in their blood,
That's the essence of exposure, lifelong exposure,
And it's involuntary,
No one said, "Hey, you know, I'm good with a little Teflon chemical
in my baby's blood,
No one said that,
They said, "I love these pans,"
[sizzling]
We think of these chemicals as associated with 3M and DuPont,
but they had also sold them to other companies,
that manufactured consumer products, manufacturing products,
It was used in airplanes and cars, on and on the applications were endless,
[female tv reporter] Workers are now using Teflon to rust proof the inside
of The Statue of Liberty,
I found that these chemical products could bond paper products to make
food wraps, grease proof wraps, cookie bags,
One of the largest companies had patents for making popcorn bags,
[Cook] Thousands of facilities, including the furniture store down the street,
that sprayed a non-stick chemical on your couch to keep stains off,
all of those places became environmental contamination sites,
[woman] And today a product that you'll find
Teflon is in clothing and things,
Gore-Tex is the brand name,,,
And then you realize that companies in Asia and in Europe,
were starting to make these chemicals as well,
[speaking German] [speaking japanese]
This crisis has been growing for decades,
And I think with a chemical that is potentially biopersistent
you pay particularly close attention to it,
Bioaccumulation, biopersistence, those are fancy words for it,
[man] What do you mean by biopersistent?
When you die and they bury you,
you're gonna have it in your blood,
C-8 seem to have half-life of humans,
[Cook] Sunlight doesn't break them down,
microbes don't break them down,
Heat doesn't break them down, nothing breaks them down,
They call this Fluorine chemical, "The Devil's piss,"
It was so potent,
Once it gets into your system, it remains in your blood,
My gut tells me the biopersistence issue will kill us,
Because of an overwhelming public attitude
that anything that is biopersistent is harmful,
[Cook] And so naturally, these Teflon and Scotchgard chemicals
permeated the living world,
We didn't know it at the time, but the evidence showed that 3M and DuPont,,,
They knew all about it,
[whistle blows]
[Joe Kiger] Wow! What a lovely bunch of coconuts, okay,
Stay on the gym floor, the boundary of the gym floor,
Ready? Go!
[kids shouting]
Oh, no!
[laughs] Gotcha!
[exclaims] What did you do boy?
Bye, bye, bye, Whoa, hey!
Good job, good job, good job,
Yahoo! Thank you!
[kid] Bye!
[Joe] I love kids, Of course I'm a school teacher, you know,
And that's the thing that drove me more than anything,
You know, I don't consider myself a whistleblower,
more or less a fact finder,
Joe has a courtyard out back, he calls it his man-cave,
And we were out there just talking on a normal day,
I know it was October,
I had gone to the mailbox that afternoon,
and I saw this envelope,
And it was from Lubeck public water department,
I opened it and there was a letter in with my water bill,
stating that DuPont needed to know if I asked if there was a chemical in our water,
They called it C-8,
I thought, "What's this about?"
[Joe] I read it,
I really didn't give it much thought,
DuPont says according to their standards it's healthy,
Hey, okay,
DuPont says its safe, it's safe, Why question it?
[Ken] I was testing C-8 as soon as I started in my lab, more or less,
From the get-go,
They always picked on me for new jobs, [chuckles]
They'd always give 'em to me 'cause they knew I'd do it,
I'd learn it,
Where I was at, I was isolated,
I mean, it was a big room,,,
With huge cylinders, that were full of C-8,
and they would bubble over,
You can think of it like a bubble bath out of control,
That's the best way of describing it,
[Sue] After they made the Teflon,
it had water that was discharged from it,
My job was to pump it out back,
So it would go directly to the river,
[Papantonio] As C-8 was being used at that DuPont plant,
3M told DuPont that under no circumstances should you put it in waterways,
It's right there in the documents,
Don't put this in the waterways,
But at the end of the day, they start dumping so much C-8 into the water,
that they, at one point, lose track
of how much they've actually put out there,
[Lerner] DuPont wanted to figure out how far it had seeped beyond its plant,
So a team of folks went out with some jugs, plastic jars,
and went to general stores and went miles down river
to collect samples,
They found, that in fact, the chemical had gone quite far from the plant,
[Papantonio] Their own scientist again and again,
their own lawyers, in fact,
told them, you know, we really should tell people about this,
'cause they're drinking it,
they're bathing in it,
Who makes the final decision as to whether or not,
there is a risk that needs to be disclosed to the community?
Well, again risk is relative,
[Joe] When we got the letter, within the next few weeks
a friend of ours talked about their granddaughter's
teeth turning black and they couldn't understand it,
And I looked over and there is my neighbor's dog,
tumors all over him,
He couldn't explain it, He said, "I've never seen him like,,,"
Every time I see somebody get sick it wasn't just a cold or a flu,
Then I heard about these young guys, two of 'em,
having testicular cancer in the area,
It got to the point where something just didn't feel right,
And for some reason, don't ask me why or what,
but that letter kept hanging in the back of my head,
I couldn't get it out of my head, What's that doin' in our water anyway?
I thought, "Well, shoot, I'll just call the Department of Natural Resources,
I'll ask him what it is,"
Didn't know anything about it,
"That's not my field,"
I thought, "Well, that is a strange attitude,
I got a hold of the clean water people, I went to the wellhead people,
Department of Health, God, I mean, I got shut off on end,
I told Darlene, I said, "Honey, something's not right here,"
So I called DuPont,
Talked to the head toxicologist for 45 minutes,
Hung the phone up,
Darlene said, "What did you find out?"
I said, "I was just fed the biggest line of BS I think I've ever been fed,"
[Evers] We heard that very early on in the production of Teflon products,
there was a manufacturer up in the midwest, who called and said,
"We want you to come over here and look at this,
We're heating up this Teflon and we heard this pounding noise on the roof,
It sounded like a hailstorm,"
It was a flock of birds,
As they were flying over where the vent was,
they just dropped out of the sky,
By 1984, the company knew that the material was going into the Ohio river,
It was going up into the air and they weren't telling the community about it,
[Ken] Particles in the air that came up into our own land,
we always wondered what it was, it wasn't dust,
it was a white kind of material,
It was all over the plant, In the air,
I think that's how it happened,
When they cut me for the cancer, they took all my rectum,
part of my colon,
Your whole life,,, Your whole life's completely different, you know,
You don't sit on a toilet ever again,
I change this thing three or four times a day,
Sometimes five,
So this is everyday life for me,
They told me two months to live,
And I'm lucky to be here telling the story,
[Papantonio] That's why you called and requested
that I go ahead and schedule the deposition
so you'd have a chance to testify while you were still alive,
Before I die, I wanna get this out,
When you're down there in the Teflon lab,
did you work with a lot of other people, that have been sick or died early?
One of my good friends, Carol Caplinger,
He had leukemia of the blood,
He died,
How old was he?
He was only 50, Forty-five, 50,
Anybody else?
Uh, Jim Rotwater,
The last time I seen him,
they were taking him to Cleveland Clinic and he died up there,
-How old was he? -Fifty,
Pat Ankram, she worked B shift,
She passed away, Joey Weaver, they had him on chemo,
I knew him all my Teflon days, Don Lutz, Lana Frankow, Daryl Chrome, Secretary,,,
-How old was he? -Thirties,
And I lost a good friend, he,,, He loved baseball,
Cliff Spiker, Steve Bailey,,, Alona Carr, she passed away,
Paul Radall, gone, William Peppers, gone, Smith, gone,
Jim Hewitt, he had tumor show up,
month later he died,
Is there any doubt, in your mind
that all of these people were exposed to C-8,
based upon your personal observation?
To the best of my ability I say they are,
Life's precious,
And to see somebody, you work with every day, my friends,
die,,,
That's hard,
That was,,, That was devastating,
[man] What's that?
It's a handkerchief for a sweaty fat guy,
That's one thing that, uh, I've never had to buy, our handkerchiefs,
'Cause my dad was a pastor, so he took them all the time,
So all my own handkerchiefs are my dad's,
Actually, the church we'd go to, he started it, yeah,
He passed away in 2008,
So, yeah,,,
You good?
-I just need to get some bottled water, -Cool,
[starts car engine]
I was probably about 19 when I think we met,
[Melinda] The summer before we got married, so it was 2002,
[Bucky] Okay,
So we met then, the funny thing is we didn't like each other at all,
-Did not, -Absolutely opposite,
I became friends, you know, with people that knew him,
and they had us meet and I was like, "No", and he was like, "No",
-It was kind of like,,, -I kind of pursued after her,
And it was more like hitting a brick wall,
-She didn't really-- -I kept saying no, [laughs]
-He finally started leaving me alone was the thing, -Oh, Okay,
I kinda could see who he really was,
That he really was funny and a gentleman,
He treated people with respect and,,,
Once he finally started leaving me alone,
I could see that, and then I started liking him, [laughs]
We were engaged, like, maybe,,,
Maybe two months after I started liking him,
Yeah,
[Sue] That day was beautiful,
His father was still here,
We were very proud of him,
Both of 'em,
Bucky and Melinda,
[Melinda] Does everybody have the verse?
-[Bucky] Yes, -[Melinda] Yes, okay, verse,
♪ You are good all the time ♪
♪ All the time ♪
♪ You are good You are,,, ♪
[Melinda] Whatever happened, you know, made him who he was
and I guess it didn't really matter to me,
And I guess later when I thought a future family, you know,
all that stuff goes through your head,
you know, when you're like, "This is the person I'm gonna marry
and, you know, is this gonna affect our lives?"
And I remember it more bothering him,
And him saying, how he would never,,, I don't wanna cry,,,
He would never wanna have a kid,
have to go through all that he went through as a kid, [crying]
[Bucky] Mmm-hmm,
[Melinda] You know, I didn't want to hinder him,
wanting to start a family, even though it was a concern for us in reality,
Before we started trying, we wanted to see how high his C-8 levels were,
and what was in his bloodstream,
[Bucky] They had a special geneticist
come in and, you know, it was, kind of like my biggest fear,
you know, being manifested right in front of my eyes,
[Melinda] His levels were so much higher, higher than even
what his mom has in her bloodstream,
They said that there was at least a 50% chance
that it could be passed on to the babies,
You know, that they could end up with exactly what he went through,
[Papantonio] Okay, it says, "Big announcement",
go ahead and read that next to the last paragraph,
"Big announcement, 3M, two days ago,
it is going to stop making Scotchgard because it is too persistent
in the environment and gets into our blood,
They then told us they are going to stop making a related product
that is an essential ingredient in the Teflon polymer,
also is very persistent and also gets into blood, but so far no signs it has hurt anyone,
If it does we are really in a soup,
because essentially everyone is exposed one way or the other,"
[Cook] The first time we came across this issue was May of 2000,
And it was just a short little story that 3M had decided
to replace the chemistry
that was underneath Scotchgard with something else,
and it was going to cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in that year,
[Bilott] 3M was presenting to the USEPA
some information that had just come in,
some rat studies with PFOS,
and the widespread presence of the chemical being found in the blood as well,
And EPA was expressing concerns about that data,
[Cook] And so 3M and the EPA hammered out an agreement
where they would voluntarily take PFOA and PFOS off the market,
[Evers] At the time, the best producer of the PFOA chemicals was 3M,
DuPont looked at that business and I was there at the time,
and they said, "Yahoo, the king is dead,"
[Papantonio] And in fact, within a few months,
DuPont made a decision not only to continue using PFOA,
but to actually begin manufacturing PFOA at its facility in North Carolina,
Correct?
I don't recall the exact timing or phasing, but you are correct,
within some period of time, we concluded to manufacture the product,,,
And to continue using the product,
[Lerner] Rob Bilott, the attorney who was
working on the Tennant case at that time,
came across this announcement of 3M's decision,
and that in fact is when he made the connection,
DuPont had dumped a similar chemical in the water on Tennant's property,
[Bilott] I sent a letter to the USEPA, on March 6th of 2001,
summarizing what we were seeing in the internal documents,
Providing information to the agency to let them know,
we think you ought to look into PFOA and investigate it,
[Cook] Rob Bilott would fight DuPont to disclose documents,
that had anything relevant to this chemistry,
As these documents came to his possession,
he would send the most relevant ones directly to the EPA,
[Lerner] DuPont tried to get a gag order from a judge to stop him,
Because they knew that he had the goods,
He knew what was going on with their chemical and could nail them,
[Papantonio] Down here it says that,
"Bilott was given 130 of our worst documents,
that he got in discovery to EPA,"
-You see that 130? -Yes,
Now, what are the worst documents?
If you were to look at the DuPont documents,
how would you consider them the worst documents?
I'm not entirely sure of recollections,
I assume they are the toxicology documents,
[Papantonio] All the way back to the '60s,
they're aware, clearly aware, of the risk of the product,
Their own documents show that this is a toxin,
[Billot] They continued to find toxicity effects through the late 1960s,
By 1988, they started doing cancer studies,
[Papantonio] In that particular study,
increased rate of leydig cell tumors
were found, correct?
That is correct?
[Cook] Their studies were showing rats dying, dogs dying,
monkeys dying, they were saying testicular tumors,
liver disease, pancreatic disease,
[Bilott] Unfortunately, monkeys even at the lowest dose
were dying after being exposed to PFOA,
And they know that these primate studies have a direct relationship
to what we'll find in the human population,
DuPont itself had classified PFOA as a confirmed animal carcinogen,
possible human carcinogen,
[Cook] All of this information was clear evidence
that should have been disclosed
under Federal law,
But those documents didn't show up at EPA at all,
When they began to show up as a result of this court case,
that's when everything changed,
[sizzling]
[tv anchor] When do you cross the threshold from convenient to dangerous?
That's what the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to determine
with a very popular chemical in almost every household,
[Joe] They just started diggin',
Finally, I talked to the national Environmental Protection Agency,
And when I read the gentleman the letter,
he said, "I'm gonna send you some information,
and when I do, he said, I want you to read it very carefully, because after you read it, you'll probably want to contact a lawyer,"
I said, "Well, okay,"
Next day, I got it in the mail, I opened it,
and I read the information and what it was, was on the Tennant case,
[Wilbur] You see the discoloration in that eye?
They're born that way,
Cow there, she gotta open her mouth and I gotta check her teeth,
They'll probably be all black, her jowl teeth,
This is what her teeth looks like,
[Joe] The key part of that was
is when they said, the cattle, their teeth had turned black,
I thought wait a minute,,,
They talked about the kids teeth turning black,
I started to put two and two together,
I looked up in the corner, I saw Rob Bilott's name up there,
So I said, "I'm gonna call this guy,"
[Papantonio] It says, "Learn in the depostion that Earl Tennant
uses Lubeck drinking water,"
and we know that Bilott has requested information from Lubeck water company,
-You see that? -I see that, yes,
[Lerner] So this letter, it had a legal purpose,
According to West Virginia law, two years after this letter went out,
the statute of limitations would run out,
And then you go on to say, "The real danger is what steps
Bilott might take to expand the number of plaintiffs,
and introduce new environmental allegations in this lawsuit,
And if he does what will the court allow him to do?"
[Lerner] The public had two years to respond,
If there was no response, the case was legally dead,
[man on tv] ,,,more rain in the forecast,
Tomorrow 87 your high temperature,
and you'll see that pattern throughout the rest of the week,
[Joe] Rob calls me from Cincinnati airport, he says,
My law firm wants to take this case on,"
He said, "Do you want to take it on as a class action
or do you wanna take it on as a civil?
I said, " I've just got a gut feeling something is just not right here,"
I said, "Where do we get the most help for most people?"
He said, "Class action", I said, "Let's do it,"
I said, "No, absolutely not,"
Because the involvement with my ex-husband,
And because of the involvement of our children,
My ex-husband worked at DuPont,
So anything that might cause them any pain or anything,
I just didn't want them to be involved,
But I could see it in Joe's eyes,
And he said, "I really think you need to do it,"
I said, "If you want me to I will, I'll do it for you,
But we gotta be very protective and very careful,"
Everybody in this area one way or another is connected to DuPont,
You go dealing with somebody's livelihood which is their job,
which is their insurance and their protection,
and you go messin' with that, you're gonna have problems,
[Harry Deitzler] You can't walk into a restaurant or any gathering,
here in Parkersburg and not run into somebody that either worked at DuPont,
has a relative that worked at DuPont, has a good friend that worked at DuPont,
The net profit for all this if you're gonna turn it into money is,
better schools, better education system,
DuPont helped fortify the city of Parkersburg,
DuPont is very good at locking up the town,
When there is something that is not going their way,
they'll help schools, they'll talk to the churches,
they are very big on the PR,
[Paul Brooks] They have unbelievable reputation for safety,
Good jobs, benefits, good citizens,
Everybody thought they could do no wrong,
[Ken] DuPont was my idol,
I used to cut grass for DuPonters when I was young,
But I don't blame them,
It's the people who run the company, the people who make the decisions,
I should have opened my eyes, but I loved DuPont so much,
And I felt they wouldn't put me in harm's way,
[Papantonio] We want to believe corporate America,
It's too horrible to believe that everyday we get up,
we're at the mercy of a corporation who might lie to us,
who might poison us, who might create a product that might kill us,
For profit,
"There was consensus reached that the issue which will decide future actions
is one of corporate image and corporate liability,
Liability was further defined
as the incremental liability from this point on if we do nothing,
As we are already liable for the past 32 years of operation,"
-See that? -Yes,
In 1984, they already admit we have been liable for 32 years,
They had made a money decision,
On the next page,
"Looking ahead, legal and medical will most likely take a position
of total elimination,
They have no incentive to take any other position,"
-See that? -[Holliday] Yes,
"A product group will take a position, but the business cannot afford it,
We know that there was a discussion about,
do we need to come up with something in our Teflon production
that's not gonna cause these problems,
And they conclude, "If we launch something new,
it's gonna cost us a lot of money,
We have to stick with C-8,
C-8 is the devil we know,"
[Evers] I think they recognized
that Teflon was a significant part of the business,
It all boils down to economics,
Let's just ignore the situation and continue using PFOA,
'Cause nobody is gonna force us to stop it,
[Papantonio] It's called externalizing cost,
We want to make all the profits at DuPont,
We wanna pass all the risk, all the illness,
all the suffering, all the cost of clean up onto the tax payers,
[Gwen] We're having spaghetti, I'm sorry,
[Earl] Well, I am too,
It's leftover so you know it'll be good,
Everybody goes through life thinking water is safe,
You go in and get it out of your sink and think, "Yeah,"
To think that an advanced country like we live in,
who would think of it being polluted or dangerous?
[Earl] It's a sad situation,
It's terrible that you have to be concerned about the water you drink,
The Ohio river comes down through Parkersburg and goes toward us,
Supplying to people in Evans with their water,
Evans is approximately 40 miles from the Parkersburg DuPont plant,
[man] Parkersburg is certainly contaminated with chemicals, C-8, right?
Um,,,
I don't know if I would characterize it that way,
Fifty thousand pounds put into the river annually is not a contamination?
[Papantonio] At one point, DuPont came out and said,
"If your drinking water is showing more than one part per billion,
of C-8 then you better not drink the water," Let me give you an idea why that is,
It's one drop of C-8 in an Olympic-sized pool,
Well, there's a hell of a lot more than that
in people's water in the Ohio River Valley,
[Earl] Probably around '98 or '99,
my thyroid glands was causing a problem,
-[Gwen] And high cholesterol, -And I had high cholesterol,
And I was having problems with my bowels,
And they came up with a real bad case of ulcerative colitis,
You have an ulcer in your colon, and it will start to bleed every so often,
And when it does, you better be near a bathroom,
if you don't you're gonna have an embarrassing situation,
[Gwen] He couldn't get it under control,
His doctor told me, he said,
"It's amazing that he has not gotten cancer from it,"
He said, "It's inevitable, it's gonna happen from this,,,
It's not gonna happen now cause I don't have a colon,
They took my colon so I won't have colon cancer,
You know, I was always thinking that one day I could retire,
and enjoy life, we could travel,
But not anymore,
I don't talk about this situation very often,
I don't tell other people about it,,, But,,,
[crying] It's changed my whole life,
[man on radio] Now, a lawsuit brought by local residents
accuses DuPont of trying to cover up what it knew about Teflon's risks,
Joe Kiger says he had no intention of hurting the DuPont corporation
when he agreed to be part of a suit challenging the health affects of C-8,
[Lerner] It was a class action suit
on behalf of,,, It turned out six different water districts,
And tens of thousands of people,
[Brooks] Everybody said, "Oh, we know it's a bunch of crap,"
You know, "DuPont wouldn't poison anybody,"
The shop talk was that Joe was out to get filthy rich,
[Joe] We've had some resistance,
I mean, as far as being shunned, wife got a phone call one day
and the guy gets on her and starts cussin' her out,
"This is awful, You are doing this,
There is not a thing wrong with the water,"
Why are you ground beatin' poor DuPont like this?
And we heard it from people in that area,
[man on tv] Teflon the famous brand name known for non-stick services
may pose health risks, the EPA,,,
[Cook] As the story began to break, DuPont scientists
were working to produce public pronouncements saying,
"Look, we've taken a look at it, it's nothing to be concerned about,"
Based on our assessment of the science,
we do not believe this poses any cancer risk,
[Stacey Mobley] Chemicals that have an effect in animals
don't necessarily have a similar effect in humans,
[Lerner] First of all, DuPont put together this team,
of legal experts and scientists,
to defend their chemical,
And it was led by someone named Mike McCabe,
[man] Sometime during 2000, you became the US EPA deputy administrator, correct?
I received a commission from the President to be the deputy administrator,
Before that I was acting administrator,
And in 2003,
you began working through McCabe and Associates for DuPont, correct?
Correct,
[Lerner] Mike McCabe had been the number two guy at EPA,
And he got other former EPA folks with him,
and they really pushed back,
[Papantonio] There was a revolving door that was taking place
between DuPont and the EPA,
DuPont had basically gained control of governmental decisions,
The "Ask", you see the "Ask", And then, "Ask" is in quotes,
"In our opinion, the only voice that can cut through the negative stories
is the voice of EPA,"
The governmental agencies that should have been responsible, the EPA,
those people were captured by DuPont,
It's called corporate capture,
[Lerner] They're sharing documents, they' re showing
each other things before they happen,
DuPont folks are requesting quotes from the EPA to put in their own press releases,
[Papantonio] "Subject, Urgent," See that?
"Coverage has been broad in print and network media,
Significant disruptions in our markets and our consumers are very concerned,
We need EPA to quickly, like first thing tomorrow say the following,
Consumer products sold under the Teflon brand are safe,
Further, to date there are no human health effects known to be caused by PFOA,"
DuPont did in fact ask EPA to make those statements, correct?
That's correct,
So all of a sudden the EPA is sayin',
"Oh, yeah, we'll do whatever you want us to do,"
Which is a complete scam, utter scam,
And it was very successful,
[newscaster] As for all those pots and pans in the homes of Americans,
both DuPont and the Federal government say,
there's no need right now, Elizabeth, to throw them out,
No need to throw them out, but seems like plenty of need for concern,
[elevator bell dings]
[indistinct chatter]
-[woman] You wanna hear the baby's heartbeat first? -Yes, that would be awesome,
[heart beating]
-[woman] He's alive, -[chuckles]
He's movin', He moved a lot,
So if you can get a face shot that would be awesome,
[woman] Yeah, you have to use your imagination,
Hands, eye, forehead,
-He's movin' around, -I wanna see two nostrils,
We can try, Let's see, I don't know how this will come out on him,
But we can try, Let me give it a shot,
[Melinda] I will say this is something we really had to pray about,
to know are we going to take the next step and have children,
[Bucky] Yeah,
There's definitely been some struggles with it,
Basically, the bottom line was, there's a 50% chance
that everything is going to be fine,
[woman] Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to 'cause his hands are right there,
He has his hand kind of over his face like this,
So that's why you can't see his nose, This is his eyelid,
-[Bucky] He does not want to co-operate, -Nope,
He does not want to co-operate,
[Bucky] I pray that our child does not have any deformities and he's 100% healthy,
But we're ready for it,
I lived my whole life for this so, it will be better,
Thanks,
[crying quietly]
We'll be okay,
[Melinda] So that's like one side of his face,
[Sue] Okay, how's this right here?
-You got it upside down, -Yeah,
-She tried,,, Tried to get a profile, -Yeah,
-She was like, "Come on," -She was like wiggling on my stomach
trying to get him to take his hands down from his face and he wouldn't,
He kept like going back up like this,
He was scared,
[Sue] Can't imagine him holding a baby and the baby being his,
And Melinda's,
They've been married for 12 years,
I know they held back for so long, I just wish his father was here to see it,
It's gonna be okay, really,
Yeah, I know, it's just,,,
[crying]
I miss my dad,
I know,,,
Would love just to talk to him about this,
[Joe] In 2005, we got the call from DuPont,
They said that you know, that they want to mediate,
Of course, we went through negotiations and everything,
for the settlement, settlement amount,
[woman reporter] Now, the implementation phase
of the settlement in that case begins,
[Lerner] Generally, with a settlement,
people just wanna be done with it,
They wanna get their cash, they wanna walk,
Because it's usually a long time coming,
But what happened in the case of C-8 was really radically different,
[Bilott] Rather than just take that money provided by DuPont under the settlement,
and divide it up among the class members and walk away,
what we decided to do was set up something called the C-8 Science Panel,
The community wanted to know, does drinking PFOA actually have links
to human disease?
[reporter] The settlement is far from the end of the C-8 case,
It merely sets into motion a blood test process which
six different water districts are eligible to take,
[Lerner] That was a sacrifice on the part of the people who had won the money,
But it was one that could have turned out paying out for everybody in the world,
[Papantonio] You have to remember that DuPont has spread C-8
all over the planet at this point,
The science panel was important to determine
exactly how bad this stuff is,
[Joe] I said, "If this stuff is harming people
and they've known full well what's going on,
we owe it to these people to get this thing right,"
[Lerner] According to the settlement,
any of those people in these six water districts,
could sue if the science panel could prove the exposures had caused any harm,
[reporter] DuPont remains confident the test results will prove C-8 is safe,
But a lot depends on how many take the test,
[Brooks] It's my belief that when DuPont settled this case,
they had predetermined that no epidemiological study could be done large enough
to ever get a link,
And with no link, the jury comes back, you're innocent,
And you can never be tried again,
[Deitzler] The problem is when you ask people to volunteer for a study,
not many gonna show up,
And so who's gonna do this?
We wanted to get this thing up and running 'cause
the momentum was there, the case had been settled,
So we put a lot of information out in ads and pamphlets, you name it,
Every type of media we could get our hands,,, We flooded the market,
[announcer] Healthy drinking water is vital to all of us,
That's why scientists need to know if the chemical C-8 causes any health problems,
By completing a health questionnaire and having your blood tested
you can help, And you may be paid up to $400,
To get started call,,,
We ended up also using that money to pay
class members to come in and have their blood tested for PFOA,
and to provide access to their medical information,
[reporter] This daughter of a DuPont worker is ready to cash her $400 check,
That's not too shabby, coming in around November for Christmas,
for a lot of families,
[reporter] If the research ends up showing that
C-8 is a major medical problem,
the impact will be beyond,,,
[overlapping chatter]
[reporter] And thousands of people are undergoing tests that may ultimately help determine whether all of are at risk,
[Bilott] One of the things that was sort of an unknown at the time
was how long this process would take,
It ended up taking more than seven years,
And the results came back around 2012,
[Joe] Virtually, the entire affected population estimated at
70,000 people participated,
It's the largest human health study in the history of the world,
In terms of its breath and scope,
[Bilott] The eyes of the world has been on this science panel,
The chemical industry has been keenly
interested in what was going to come out of this,
The designed the most world that have ever
class studies been done on a pollutant,
They spent seven years,
Seven years studying this community,
What other chemical do you have this kind of information about?
The science is unequivocal now,
In 2012, they said there was a link between drinking this in the water
and six different diseases,
Kidney cancer, testicular cancer,
ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease,
preeclampsia and high cholesterol,
[Gwen] We found out through the newspaper article,
I was reading, I said, "Earl, that C-8 can cause,,,
You know, I started naming them, I said, "You have three of those,"
[Joe] Mine was cholesterol, and high cholesterol contributes to heart disease,
Well, I've got nine stents and I had a heart attack,
[Sue] After the blood test, I was notified that I have thyroid disease,
[Ken] Was I a guinea pig? What do you think? That's what it looks like,
Was Carol Caplinger a guinea pig? Was Cliff Spiker a guinea pig?
Was Joey Weaver a guinea pig?
Were they thinking we're dumb enough that we don't know what's going on?
[Cook] First, it's the workers you betray by not telling them,
And then you betray the community in which these plants operate,
And then you betray the community next door,
Who's also being exposed,
We're upstream,
We never anticipated that we would be included in any of this,
[reporter] Thousands of people in Vienna, West Virginia are being told
do not drink the water,
[radio announcer] Clean water distribution sites, they're open till 9 o'clock tonight,
They will reopen bright and early tomorrow morning at 8:00,
-Have a good day, -You too,
It worries me, We've got a lot of cancer in this area,
And then you wonder why,
[Bilott] This is not just in West Virginia and Ohio,
It's been found in drinking water all over the country,
[reporter] PFOA have been turning up in drinking water in New York state, Vermont,
There are some new concerns today over the drinking water in New Castle, Delaware,
,,,the drinking water in portions of the Tennessee Valley,
This is something that affects everyone all over the country,
You should be more worried about people's lives,
-[people cheering] -Sorry,
And then every continent on the planet, [speaking Korean]
[speaking Dutch]
[people cheering]
[Evers] You have to realize, the argument that DuPont says,
"So what? It's in your blood,"
[In Italian] No contaminated water!
And my position would be, "You have no right to pollute my blood,"
[Bucky] I was overwhelmingly disgusted by the findings,
The science panel came back and said, "We haven't really got a complete link
to your deformities,"
When you look at the deformities that these animals had,
that I had the same deformities?
[scoffs] That's not a coincidence,
[Cook] You could argue that Bucky Bailey's birth defects were not related,
That the birth defects of the other child
in that group of eight children weren't related,
And I think DuPont did argue that, that it can't be proven,
But the odds of that being the case are very low,
You studied eight women who worked with C-8,
Two of them had children with birth defects,
That would not be significant?
In the realm of scientific facts, this is not considered
a statistically significant sample,
[Sue] They said they didn't have enough information,
how much information you have to have when you got two babies,
How much do you need?
[Bucky] How can there not be a link?
It's hard for me to stay idle and say, "Okay, I accept this,"
I don't wanna accept it,
[Papantonio] May it please the court? Ladies and gentlemen,
this case breaks down pretty easily,
it's not as complicated as you might think,
First of all, one of the issues,,,
[reporter] For years now, it's been argued that this chemical is poisonous,
but for the first time today a jury agreed,
Putting blame on DuPont,
A plaintiff in the first case of a long line of personal injury wrongful
death suits against the DuPont company has been rewarded $1,6 million,
[Lerner] It was definitely a fasten your seat belt kind of moment,
DuPont realized the jury saw things in a different way then they did,
[reporter] This case is the first case against DuPont that went to court,
and it's going to cost them possibly their reputation,
[Papantonio] I think everybody saw the writing on the wall,
That if we can win the first case,
we can win virtually all of the cases,
A Federal jury recently awarded $5,1 million,,,
The jury found that DuPont acted with malice,
There's no money in the world they can offer me that's gonna justify,,,
This is a criminal offense,
The CEO's of DuPont are walking around with their freedom, untouched,
[Brooks] It's like if I go out here and spray arsenic around,
and then it gets in people's water, and they slowly get poisoned, and they die,
they'll arrest me and charge me for murder,
Then I'll go to jail,
$16 million? Really?
This is a company at the time that was selling $25 billion worth of products every year,
I am not sure what the right fine would be for contaminating
humanity, contaminating the living world,
But I am pretty sure it's not $16 million,
DuPont's big give was to participate in a gradual phase out of C-8,
By 2015, nobody could make C-8,
[Bilott] They say that we're not gonna stop making Teflon,
So should we find some side C-8 to make it with?
GEN-X is what they are calling it,
When there is no safety standard, there is no required set of tests,
to bring a chemical to market,
you never know if getting rid of one chemical is going to result in bringing in
a substitute that's just as bad or worse,
[Bilott] Once they started making GEN-X, DuPont initiated a rat study,
And the results showed the same kind of tumors that we saw with PFOA,
[baby gurgling]
Wow! Hello!
Uh-huh, Uh-huh,
[baby laughing]
You're handsome, You're handsome,
[Bucky] I'll never forget it, sitting in that pre-op and just thinking,
you know, "What's my reaction going to be when I see him?"
The first time I saw him, they were cleaning him up, they called me over,
And I'm thinking to myself, "Please, Lord, I know this is gonna be okay,
I know this is gonna be okay,
But what if it's not okay?"
[baby cries]
That cry I just knew he was,,,
His first cry, I knew I was a dad,
It changed my life, It really did,
His eyes are closed but he's smiling,
This is heaven right here for me, This is awesome,
This is not something that I should have to have concerns about,
for years and years and years,
That my son can have a deformity because of some water,
or some chemical that got in my blood,
It's not over yet,
This isn't the end,
We're gonna fight till everyone is safe,
[laughing]
I don't know what C-8 does with lifelong exposure,
but changes have to be made,
[Cook] We don't have the science yet to explain long term exposure,
But we're just beginning to understand all kinds of new risks,
At very low levels this Teflon chemistry can affect the immune system,
They can have impacts on the nervous system,
They can have impacts on how we metabolize various food nutrients,
On and on and on,
[Bilott] If a person is exposed to C-8 on day one,
they may not manifest disease for years,
Children for example, we're starting to see them become ill with latent kinds of disease,
[Lerner] We don't know how it will affect people for years to come,
because we're just figuring out what it is,
scientists are just catching up with it,
And as they are doing this, they've already phased in the replacement,
So that's already out there,
You can see from this story, from this vantage point
that it almost goes on forever,
[reporter 1] Drinking water in North Carolina is being tested
for a toxic substance called GEN-X,
It turned up recently in the Cape Fear River,
[reporter 2] GEN-X is the replacement chemical being used for Teflon production,
after DuPont was found to be using a previous toxic chemical,,,
[reporter 3] DuPont did stop using C-8,
but they've just replaced one poison with another,