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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Monday December 5 @ 7:30 pm “Battle for Brooklyn”  short TBA The filmmaker will attend
• Tuesday December 6 @ 7:30pm  ”Medium Hot” short TBA The filmmaker will attend
• Wednesday December 7 @ 7:30pm “Toxic Soup”  short “Mountain Man”
• Tuesday December 13 @ 8pm “The Orange Chronicles” The filmmaker will attend.
• Wednesday December 14 “Granito, how to nail a dictator” short TBA The filmmaker will attend.
• Thursday December 15 “Bigger than the Beatles” The filmmaker will attend.

For more information contact Charles Krezell at 917-514-2197.

We initially shot the footage that became “Mountain Man” as part of our feature length documentary Toxic Soup, which we released in 2010. Unfortunately, Larry Gibson’s story ended up on the cutting room floor. But his story of survival and leadership was a story that we had to tell.

So when Nashville-based producer P.G. Banker came out to Los Angeles, we sat down and revisited the footage, rescuing Larry’s story from the cutting room floor — who knew that it would be destined for the big screen in London!

We initially shot the footage that became “Mountain Man” as part of our feature length documentary Toxic Soup, which we released in 2010. Unfortunately, Larry Gibson’s story ended up on the cutting room floor. But his story of survival and leadership was a story that we had to tell.

So when Nashville-based producer P.G. Banker came out to Los Angeles, we sat down and revisited the footage, rescuing Larry’s story from the cutting room floor — who knew that it would be destined for the big screen in London!

He’s been laughed at, cussed out and shot at, but Larry Gibson refuses to abandon his home atop Kayford Mountain in West Virginia.

In 2001, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began to publish its biennial National Report on Human Exposure to Environmental Chemicals, which reports a statistically representative sample of the U.S. population. The Environmental Working Group has also conducted biomonitoring studies and since 1999 the CDC has measured 219 chemicals in people’s blood or urine across the United States.

The term, Chemical Body Burden refers to the hundreds of toxic chemicals that scientists have detected in the blood of human beings around the world. The medical phenomenon is a new one. Prior to World War II and the chemical revolution, the majority of these chemicals did not exist. And while the chemical revolution has afforded (and continues to afford) society with many technological advances, this progress has come at a price. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

According to a 2009 study conducted by the Environmental Working Group in conjunction with Rachel’s Network, 9 out of 10 randomly selected samples of umbilical cord blood tested positive for BPA, an industrial petrochemical produced by the millions of tons annually to make polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. BPA has been implicated in a lengthening list of serious chronic disorders, including: cancer, cognitive and behavioral impairments, endocrine system disruption, reproductive and cardiovascular system abnormalities, diabetes, asthma and obesity.

In addition to BPA, there were another 231 chemicals found in the blood of the newborns during the EWG study. Legendary journalist, Bill Moyers, also had his own medical samples tested for a documentary film, Trade Secrets, and discovered 84 chemical substances in his own blood, including dioxins, PCBS, and the endocrine disrupting phthalate DEHP. The health effects of these chemicals mixed into the blood like a toxic soup remain unknown.

The reason for chemical body burden is simple: an estimated 42 billion pounds of chemicals enter American commerce daily, according to the University of California Berkeley—enough to fill up 623,000 tanker trucks every day, a string of trucks that could straddle the United States if placed end to end. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has required testing on less than 200 of those pollutants and banned only five chemicals since the agency’s creation in 1970.

According to the Endocrine Society, which is made up of 14,000 hormone researchers and medical specialists in more than 100 countries, “even infinitesimally low levels of exposure (to chemicals and other pollutants)… may cause endocrine or reproductive abnormalities… Surprisingly, low doses may even exert more potent effects than higher doses.”

The American Medical Association Board of Delegates has called on the federal government to minimize the public’s exposure to BPA and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The Endocrine Society, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have advanced the measure.

New Jersey Senator, Frank Lautenberg has introduced the Safe Chemicals Act of 2011 and The Kid Safe Chemical Act that aims to replace the moribund Toxic Substances Control Act, which grandfathered approximately 62,000 chemicals into the market, with no testing or reviews, chemicals that include neurotoxin ethyl benzene, among others.