WVU: Individual reports available to those affected by C8 contamination
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University, as a steward of the data collected in the 2005-2006 Brookmar C8 Health Project Study, has made individual reports of the study’s findings available to each of the 69,030 participants who took part in the court-ordered community health study to document the leaked chemical’s health effects on affected residents.
It is now widely known that DuPont’s Washington Works plant, located seven miles upstream from Parkersburg, W.Va., leaked perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a man-made chemical used in manufacturing many common household products, into the air and the Ohio River for more than 50 years. Settlement of the 2001 class action suit filed against DuPont by area residents culminated in, among many other provisions, the company’s funding of the study and the establishment of a scientific panel to analyze the collected data.
The settlement was later amended to designate the WVU Health Sciences Center responsible for preserving, overseeing, implementing, managing, and administering the sharing of data.
“The organizational effort to handle this important information has been a tremendous undertaking,” Glenn H. Dillon, Ph.D., vice president for Health Sciences Research and Graduate Education. “Ultimately, making these reports available to affected West Virginians is a prime example of the University’s mission and duty to serve our state.”
Brookmar, Inc., was created by A. Paul Brooks, Jr., M.D., and Arthur A. Maher, M.H.A., to gather detailed health histories, blood chemistries, and C8 blood levels from the residents of the six water districts that were impacted by contamination of their drinking water. The individual reports contain responses to the Brookmar Survey, laboratory test results, and data collected by the C8 Science Panel.
Information pertaining to the reports and instructions for accessing them is available on a website hosted by the Office of the Vice President for Health Sciences Research and Graduate Education at WVU. Information provided on the site is not intended to address questions about causal links between health status and exposure to C8, nor is it intended to answer questions individuals may have about whether exposure to C8 caused their specific disease. There is a $25 charge for processing each request for a report.
To learn how to obtain an individual C8 Health Project report, visit http://bit.ly/c8reports.