April 13, 2023

The Huffington Post Produces a Report on How the Corporate State Works to Resolve The E. Palestine Chemical Disaster

In an article published by the Huffington Post writer Chris D’Angelo pens a careful investigation of how the marriage of industry and state plays out on the ground in East Palestine. In a previous post here at PA-CHD news we highlighted an analysis of previous corporate-state strategies in environmental disaster response that sought to spread the health problem to a broader segment of the population to confound future epidemiological studies.

Huffington Post

The disaster response has not only been flawed — it is one big conflict of interest.

Public trust has only continued to crumble since Regan’s initial visit — especially when it became evident that responders weren’t initially testing for all hazardous materials on the train after all. Many area residents have been clear about their lack of confidence that officials have been transparent about current and future health and environmental risks.

“I don’t believe the government or railway company’s claims that our town is safe,” Greg Mascher, a village resident, wrote in a recent op-ed in The Guardian. “You hate to say that they’re lying, but they are.”

As authorities assured the community that the air and water were safe, residents and responders reported numerous symptoms, from sore throats and coughing to bloody noses and rashes.

The U.S. EPA and Ohio EPA, an unaffiliated state agency, have repeatedly stressed that they are supervising and overseeing the disaster response — namely, monitoring for toxic chemicals in the environment.

One of the primary concerns is exposure to dioxins, an extremely toxic class of chemicals thought to have been released into the environment when hundreds of thousands of pounds of vinyl chloride, a common organic chemical used in the production of plastics, were intentionally burned to prevent a potential explosion. Dioxins are linked to numerous serious and potentially deadly health problems, including cancer, developmental and reproductive problems, immune system damage and hormone disruption.