**Please note that this webinar has passed but you can find the recording here or watch it below.**
Join us on Monday, December 11 at 7pm ET for a discussion on the dangers posed by the chemical vinyl chloride and its toll on the health of individuals and communities. Vinyl chloride is a critical raw material for the plastics industry, but it is highly toxic and is not found in any other products. Decades of experience and research have in fact demonstrated that it poses significant dangers to human health. Among workers it has been associated with high levels of angiosarcoma, a deadly and rare cancer of the liver, while in the wider population it is connected with brain and lung cancers, lymphoma, and leukemia. Most recently, it grabbed headlines when a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, prompted the release of nearly 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride from five tankers, contaminating nearby land, air, and water. Area residents experienced rashes, headaches and nosebleeds among other ailments. The toxic properties of vinyl chloride are well known, and in 1974 the EPA banned the chemical as an aerosol propellant, but it has taken no regulatory action since then – until now. This fall, the agency is considering adding vinyl chloride to its list of chemicals to reassess for a ban or restriction due to toxicity.
It is time for the public to know more about it. At our webinar on December 11, Professor David Rosner will summarize the risks of vinyl chloride and the experiences shared with his co-author, Professor Gerald Markowitz, in researching and writing, Deceit and Denial (2002), a highly-regarded book about the industry’s use of cover-ups and disinformation campaigns to continue selling a product it knew was harmful. Jess Conard, Appalachia Director at Beyond Plastics, will then offer a first-hand account of events in her hometown, East Palestine, Ohio, where residents have been uprooted from their homes, suffered acute health impacts, and been denied access to health assessments, indoor air monitoring, and soil testing. The day of the derailment was a grim warning of the dangers of vinyl chloride, and the expensive and overlooked hazards of the plastic production industry. The perspective, knowledge, and insight that Rosner and Conard can share with us will shed light on the urgency of this issue. Fifty years after it first took action on vinyl chloride, it is time for the EPA to step in with a wider ban.
Register now for this free webinar on Monday, December 11, 2023 at 7:00 PM ET.
SPEAKERS
David Rosner, Ph.D., MPH, is Professor of History and Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University. He focuses on research at the intersection of public health and social history, and the politics of occupational disease and industrial pollution. He has been actively involved in lawsuits on behalf of cities, states, and communities around the nation that are trying to hold industry accountable for past acts. His work has been influential in a number of international legislative and legal decisions regarding industrial safety and health, health policy, and race relations. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Award, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, and a Josiah Macy Fellow. He received his BA from CCNY, his MPH from the University of Massachusetts, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in the History of Science.
Jess Conard is the Appalachia Director of Beyond Plastics, where she seeks to forge a positive path to end plastics pollution. A licensed speech language pathologist by training, she was launched into grassroots advocacy following the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment and chemical spill. Jess has been sought out and featured on multiple national news programs like CNN, Fox and News Nation as well as NPR 1A and other local podcasts to champion endorsements for medical safety and air quality monitoring for her community. She continues to seek national policy change for rail safety and to amplify initiatives for ecological security.
