For the last 50 years, EPA has buckled to pressure from the chemical industry, and basically done nothing to protect millions of Americans from breathing a life-threatening, cancer-causing chemical known as “ethylene oxide” (ETO). Along the way, EPA even repeatedly violated federal law – the “Clean Air Act” – by…
Attorney Shawn Collins, founder and partner of The Collins Law Firm in Naperville, Illinois, was instrumental in forging a $408 million settlement of the cancer claims of more than 800 plaintiffs in In re Willowbrook Ethylene Oxide Litigation, venued in Illinois State Court (Cook County). The claims arose after a…
Last week, the EPA’s Inspector General issued a report slamming his own agency for failing to alert Americans living near plants using a chemical known as ethylene oxide (EtO) that their health is in danger because EtO is such a potent cancer-causer. The report concludes that: “The EPA needs to…
Yesterday, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the cases against Sterigenics held a press conference to expose what we have recently learned about the apparent attempts of Sterigenics and its corporate owners to make it more difficult for our clients who prove their cases to receive just compensation. As we detail…
The Collins Law Firm has filed a lawsuit on behalf of six former teachers at Hinsdale South High School who have been stricken with cancer. The lawsuit claims that the teachers’ cancer was caused by their exposure to Sterigenics’ ethylene oxide during the time they worked at Hinsdale South. Moreover,…
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual health campaign that raises awareness and support for the 1 in 8 women in the United States that will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. Bringing awareness to this disease is important because breast cancer is the most common cancer in women…
“The announcement that Sterigenics has decided not to reopen its Willowbrook facility, while a victory for the people fighting Sterigenics’ unsafe ethylene oxide emissions, is also a sad reminder that it should never have been allowed to operate there in the first place. For years, Sterigenics spewed its cancer-causing chemical…
“I am disgusted, but not surprised, by the Illinois EPA’s decision to grant Sterigenics a permit to reopen. This is the same state agency that, in 1984, gave the operator of the Willowbrook plant a permit to emit ethylene oxide into the local community in quantities that the state knew…
The Collins Law Firm has filed a lawsuit against Sterigenics alleging that its client, 16-year-old Yasmeen Harrison, has battled cancer for most of her young life because of Sterigenics’ ethylene oxide emissions. According to the lawsuit, Sterigenics knowingly emitted “massive and unnecessary amounts of ethylene oxide, an invisible, odorless carcinogen”…
The Collins Law Firm has filed eleven lawsuits against Sterigenics alleging their clients contracted cancer after being exposed to Sterigenics’ ethylene oxide emissions for years. According to the lawsuits, Sterigenics knowingly emitted the cancer-causing gas starting in 1985 and continuing through 2019. As a result, residents who lived or worked…