According to The News Journal, a federal jury has ruled against chemical giant DuPont in a lawsuit raised by Kenneth Vigneron, an Ohio man who lived near the company’s Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, W. Va. Vigneron claimed that a chemical used to produce one of DuPont’s signature products, Teflon, caused him to develop kidney cancer. The offending chemical’s name? C-8.
“The plaintiff was diagnosed with kidney cancer, one of the diseases linked to C-8 exposure by an independent science panel that conducted health exposure studies in the Mid-Ohio Valley from 2005 to 2013. A $70 million settlement in 2005 between DuPont and Mid-Ohio Valley residents in a class-action lawsuit resulted in the science panel’s creation.” reported the News Journal.
DuPont has said it will appeal.
One lawyer’s battle against DuPont and its Washington Works plant’s alleged negligence was the center of a New York Times Magazine article by Nathaniel Rich in early 2016. The Wilmington News Journal also did a longform investigation of their own on the issue in April 2016.
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