Shareholders of the chemical company DuPont can expect to face a rude awakening in 2016 as lawsuits and trials against the company reach a tipping point, potentially costing the chemical giant and those who own a piece of the radioactive pie hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The cancer-causing company has already been hit with a $1.6 million verdict in a case which concluded that DuPont’s chemical C8 caused kidney cancer in an Ohio woman in December, and that is just the beginning.
DuPont knows that the American people who have been irreparably damaged by the effects of C8 are coming for them; they knew that things were not going to end well for them for decades, yet they continue to cover up their mistakes and hide the truth from the public and from their shareholders.
With the precedent set during the September 2015 trial between Ohio woman Carla Bartlett and DuPont, wherein it was ruled that DuPont’s negligence caused Bartlett’s kidney cancer, the door is now wide open for the thousands of cases already lodged against DuPont to proceed and succeed. DuPont is clearly trying to keep it quiet, but with so many trials ahead, the law of averages is working against them in a big way.
Attorney Mike Papantonio is one of the leading lawyers handling the C8 cases on behalf of the plaintiffs who are accusing DuPont of having caused them permanent health issues and damages. During the Bartlett trial, Papantonio argued that DuPont had turned the water and land on and around the plant into a “toxic waste dump,” and that DuPont officials “knew more . . . than anyone” that C8 was an extremely dangerous chemical.
The cases regarding DuPont are particularly egregious because of the scope of the effects that C8 has had on the environment. As we have previously reported, C8 is incredibly resilient and does not break down like a naturally occurring element. Instead, it has traveled all over the globe, finding its way into the bodies of 98 percent of Americans. It has even been found in the bodies of animals in the Antarctic. According to the CDC, C8 also has ended up in umbilical cords and breast milk. The C8 currently present in the environment will remain for hundreds of thousands of years.
C8 has been connected specifically to six diseases: ulcerative colitis; pregnancy-induced hypertension; high cholesterol; thyroid disease; testicular cancer; and kidney cancer. The C8 Science Panel concluded that C8 uniquely affects the entire body of those exposed, no matter the level of exposure.
The next trial for DuPont is set to begin in March with several more following in 2016 and beyond. No doubt, DuPont will continue to tip-toe around the issue of the incoming litigation to its shareholders. Particularly with the pending Dow-DuPont merger, DuPont has motive to keep those invested in the company in the dark.
No matter what DuPont does to hide the truth, justice is coming for this evil corporation. American citizens whose lives have been irreparably altered by the negligence and greed of this company are going to be the ones who come out on top this time. It is time for DuPont’s shareholders to begin asking DuPont to own up and face the deep dark truthful mirror about the problems caused by its history of polluting the environment and contaminating American citizens with C8.
