Children's Health Defense By
By Julie Grant
It’s been nearly a year since a massive Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, by the Pennsylvania border that released toxic chemicals into the community.
In the first weeks afterward, doctors and health officials provided clinical assistance to residents who felt sick, but officials did not set up a public health infrastructure to confirm if those symptoms were from chemical exposures and to track future health impacts.
Public health experts say there should have been immediate testing of people for chemicals in their bodies, along with the creation of a large-scale community health registry. Without these, residents won’t know the long-term impacts on their health.
In this investigation, The Allegheny Front found out why doctors were advised not to test for chemical exposures and the consequences of that decision.
What happened that night?
On the evening of Feb. 3, 2023, 38 Norfolk Southern train cars derailed and a dozen more caught fire, close to people’s homes and businesses.
Eleven derailed cars carried hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, isobutylene and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, chemicals can cause burning of the eyes and skin, coughing and shortness of breath, headaches and nausea.
When these chemicals break down, they can change or react with things in the environment, creating new chemicals. Days after the derailment, emergency responders were concerned about an uncontrolled explosion of vinyl chloride in five railcars.
The governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania ordered an evacuation in a one-by-two-mile radius around the derailment site so that the gas could be released for a controlled burn. That led to explosions, a dark plume seen for miles around and ash throughout the community.
Giving the all-clear
Two days later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said its monitoring and sampling found chemicals in the air and water at safe levels and residents were allowed to return home.
But at a contentious town hall meeting in East Palestine the following week, Jamie Ervin was still scared to return home with her kids.
“I have a five-year-old, and he has rashes all over his body, almost like he has eczema, which he does not. They don’t have an answer for it, though,” she told The Allegheny Front.
Rebecca Dilts did return home when the evacuation was lifted, but her young daughter woke up with painful, itchy eyes.
“They were bloodshot, they were swollen down to her cheeks, and then whenever I took her to the doctor… she wasn’t sure how to treat it,” Dilts said.
Dr. Gretchen Nickell, chief medical officer at East Liverpool City Hospital, about 20 miles south, started seeing patients with similar symptoms that could be from chemical exposures.
“So when I have patients that say, ‘I’ve got a skin rash, I’ve got dermatitis, I’m having a hard time breathing,’ I’m diagnosing pneumonitis, eyes, ears, nose, throat irritation,” she said at a workshop held by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in November 2023.
Nickell says she wasn’t sure what to tell people about the chemicals.
“And knowing that we had VOCs [volatile organic compounds] and vinyl chloride, what, if any, kind of testing should we be doing?” …
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (childrenshealthdefense.org)
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