Environmental Contamination

Make Sure You Know What’s In Your Hand Sanitizer

July 20, 2020 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

Hand-sanitizer-225x300 Washing your hands with soap and water is always the best option for keeping your hands clean, but we don’t always have access to soap and water. That’s where hand sanitizer comes in. Hand sanitizers have never been as popular or necessary as they are right now. Unfortunately, the increase in demand for hand sanitizers has led to some dangerous products being on the shelves. There has been a dramatic increase in hand sanitizers containing methanol, also referred to as wood alcohol. Methanol has no place in hand sanitizers given that it can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested. To make matters worse, the methanol found in hand sanitizers is not being labeled as an ingredient on the product itself, meaning we have to be extremely careful about what products we are buying and using during this time.

What is Methanol?

Methanol is a volatile, flammable liquid that is commonly used in antifreeze and fuel production. Exposure to methanol can cause agitation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, amnesia, seizures, and comas. If hand sanitizer containing methanol is ingested, blindness or death can occur. Under no circumstances should methanol be used in hand sanitizers.

FDA Issues Warning About Toxic Ingredient in Some Hand Sanitizers

June 22, 2020 | Margaret Collins

woman-applying-hand-sanitizer-3987149-200x300 As if COVID-19 is not bad enough, now there is news that some hand sanitizers being sold to prevent the virus may be hazardous themselves.

The FDA has issued a warning to consumers not to use hand sanitizers made in Mexico by Eskbiochem SA de CV. The hand sanitizers, which goes by multiple names, may contain methanol, which can be toxic when absorbed through the skin.

The products identified by the FDA are:

What COVID-19 Can Teach Us About Climate Change

May 12, 2020 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

environmental-protection-326923_1920-1024x683 COVID-19 has had disastrous effects on humans around the globe. It has killed thousands, left even more in financial despair, and infected millions of people worldwide. However, it does not come without a silver lining. As a result of coronavirus-related shutdowns, air pollution, which plays a major role in whether those infected with COVID-19 live or die, is at its lowest level in years. If we pay close enough attention, this pandemic can also function as a learning moment for the climate crisis.

Worldwide, air pollution levels have dropped drastically as a result of shelter-in-place orders. The Himalayas are visible to those in India for the first time in years, skies across the globe are clearer than they’ve been in a very long time, and air pollution levels are the best they’ve been in nearly three decades. Perhaps more importantly, highways are empty, planes are grounded, and factories have slowed production, reducing hazardous emissions in the air. While these improvements are exciting, they are temporary. The sharp reduction in fossil fuel pollution as a direct result of shelter-in-place orders has caused a short-term improvement in the quality of air that we are breathing.

However, we cannot expect these results to continue once the pandemic is over and orders are lifted. We must use this moment to pay attention and move forward into a new and better future. If we do not, when the shutdowns are over and life returns to the way it was, so will air pollution levels. We’re already seeing this happen in China, where the shutdown in response to COVID-19 is being slowly lifted. China’s air pollution levels dropped just like ours have. Now that their shutdown is being lifted, air pollution levels have jumped right back up to where they were before. Not only is this extremely disappointing for the fate of our planet, but it’s also extremely scary given that their shelter-in-place orders are not even fully lifted yet. This means that it’s possible that China’s air pollution levels may be even worse once the pandemic is fully over.

The Government’s Failure at Camp Lejeune

May 5, 2020 | The Collins Law Firm, P.C.

Camp-Lejeune Update, July 2022: The House and Senate recently passed the Honoring Our PACT Act, which will allow veterans and their families to recover damages for illnesses caused by toxic water at Camp Lejeune by filing an FTCA claim, and if that claim is denied, by filing a toxic tort lawsuit in North Carolina. The Bill was expected to go to President Biden’s desk for his signature, but it is currently being blocked in the Senate by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans.

A United States Marine Corps base in Onslow County, North Carolina was the site of “the worst example of water contamination this country has ever seen.” Camp Lejeune is the second largest Marine base in the United States. Marines and their families lived on base for short periods of time learning necessary skills, since it was an amphibious training base. Then, they would leave to be stationed elsewhere. Little did they know that they were being exposed to toxic water in their temporary homes.

From the 1950s through the 1980s, people living or working at Camp Lejeune were exposed to contaminated drinking water from multiple sites on base. For instance, prior to 1986, water coming from two treatment plants—Tarawa Terrace and Hadnot Point—contained volatile organic compounds. The contamination primarily included perchloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE), dichloroethylene (DCE), vinyl chloride, and benzene. Throughout the base, the drinking water contained toxic chemicals at levels 240 to 3,400 times higher than what safety standards permit.

The White Hot Spotlight of Environmental Racism: COVID-19’s Devastation of Communities of Color Exposes America’s Unforgivable Racial Divide

April 13, 2020 | Shawn Collins

african-American-cdc-aeh1dbI_a7I-unsplash-1024x683 Among the many ugly truths of COVID-19’s heartbreak and ruin, these are the ugliest:

In Milwaukee, African Americans are 70% of COVID-19’s deaths, but only 26% of the population.
In Louisiana, those numbers are 70% and 32%.

Get the Ethylene Oxide Plants the Hell out of America’s Neighborhoods

April 7, 2020 | Shawn Collins

high-angle-shot-of-suburban-neighborhood-1546168-1024x576 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 inform residents who live near facilities with significant [EtO] emissions about their elevated estimated cancer risks so they can manage their health risks.”

A bit of background: In 2016, the EPA finally joined other health agencies in classifying EtO as “known” to cause cancer in humans–specifically breast cancer, lymphomas, and leukemias. In fact, the EPA found that EtO is 30 times more dangerous to human health than the agency had previously recognized. Case in point: for the community of Willowbrook, IL, a Chicago suburb, EtO concentrations measured in 2018 testing resulted in a cancer risk 6,400 times the 1 in 1 million risk that the EPA considers “acceptable”. I and other lawyers represent dozens of Willowbrook area residents who have filed lawsuits claiming that exposure to EtO emitted for decades by a local plant known as “Sterigenics” caused their, or a deceased loved one’s, cancer.

With this 2016 finding, the EPA had committed to warning the residents living near the nation’s 25 plants using ethylene oxide. These residents are in danger because, after the EtO is used in those plants to kill bacteria during the process of sterilizing medical equipment, the potentially lethal chemical is then released from the plant through vents or stacks (and sometimes doors and windows), where air currents often push it into the nearby homes, school, churches, parks, and businesses of adjacent residential communities.

IT’S A GREAT TIME TO BE A POLLUTER IN AMERICA: Trump’s EPA Refuses to Enforce Environmental Laws, Capping Steep 10-Year Drop in EPA Punishment of Polluters

April 5, 2020 | Shawn Collins

Pollution-global-warming-2370285_1920-1024x682 Late last month, Americans were panicked by COVID-19 claiming the lives of hundreds of people per day (it’s now more than 1,000 per day), and consumed by the fear of sickness, job loss, financial distress and the anxiety caused by our entire way of life being cast into uncertainty. President Trump seized on that very moment of intense national distraction to have his EPA decide to stop enforcing environmental laws altogether. This means that polluters will no longer face penalties for failing to monitor or report their pollution, or for spewing and dumping toxic chemicals into our air and water.

In the nearly 50 year history of the EPA, this is the first time that the agency has ever just flatly refused to do its job.

Trump’s EPA offered only phony reasons for this license to endanger American lives:

BLOOMBERG LAW INSIGHT: Trump ‘Secret Science Rule’ Would Set Environmental Law Back Decades

March 3, 2020 | Shawn Collins

trump-2546104_1920-1 The Trump administration’s “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science” rule will severely limit the scientific studies used by the federal government to create new regulations. Environmental attorney Shawn Collins says the rule requires data to be publicly available, including confidential medical records and sensitive personal information and will be a major impediment for clean air and water rules. Continue reading…

Trump’s Toxic Swamp

February 12, 2020 | Shawn Collins

nature-3374583_1920-300x199 Not only has President Trump failed to clean up any swamps in Washington or elsewhere, but his new budget—if passed—will ensure that there are toxic swamps all over the country.

Trump’s new budget slashes the EPA’s budget by 26%, at the same time as his toadies at the agency cynically claim that the EPA will focus on its “core mission—providing Americans with clean air, clean water and ensuring chemical safety”. That’s a bald-faced lie. It’s impossible for the EPA to guarantee that with 26% less staff and $2.4 billion less in funding—the cuts proposed by Trump.

The most telling piece of the president’s budget is the cut to the EPA’s Superfund program. Trump’s disdain for people suffering from toxic pollution is evident in his proposed 10% cut of a program that currently has the longest backlog of toxic waste cleanup in 15 years. For lack of enough Superfund money, children are being exposed to the nastiest, most carcinogenic, toxic chemicals in their air and water while waiting for the government to clean up their neighborhoods and towns. If Trump actually cared about people—or clean air and water for that matter– he would beef up this program instead of letting regular folks twist in the wind.

Sterigenics Funnels $1.3 Billion in Cash to Shareholders as Victims’ Claims Grow

February 4, 2020 | Shawn Collins

Shawn-3-Copy-300x177 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 in our newest court filing (and as summarized below), in the two years since the federal government in 2016 concluded that ethylene oxide is 30 times more potent of a carcinogen than previously believed, Sterigenics and its owners have taken $1.3 billion in cash out of the company, put it in their own pockets, and replaced it with money borrowed from banks. The effect of this is to put company cash and other assets out of reach of plaintiffs who prove that Sterigenics caused their cancers.

Rest assured: we will expose this behavior, get to the bottom of it, and hold Sterigenics accountable in court for anything they have done here that is unlawful. We will bring this behavior before the Judge and jury, and demand justice—which includes just compensation for our clients who prove their cases.

This past Friday, we filed an amended complaint adding new allegations to our lawsuits. The new allegations are as follows: