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Dark Waters is released in cinemas across the UK this weekend. Please allow approximately 20 extra minutes for pre-show and trailers before the show starts.2 hr 6 minPG13Released Nov 22, 2019, This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google. WILBUR Tennant could only watch in horror as his healthy herd of cows began foaming at the mouth, their teeth turning black and their eyes rolling to the back of their heads. DARK WATERS, the new film by Todd Haynes, begins like a monster movie. Despite the reluctance of companies to accept wrongdoing, the local community had won. The farmland shrunk, however, in the 1980s when one of the sons, Jim, and his wife Della sold 66 acres to the influential DuPont. "It just felt like the right thing to do. I felt an obligation to warn of this public health threat that was going on.”. They never told the public about it. It didn’t affect just those who drunk the contaminated local water, but also any members of the general public who cooked with Teflon kitchenware. Bilott filed against DuPont in summer of 1999. Tests show that 99% of Americans have C8 in their blood and that’s expected to be replicated around the world. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click here. Blood was inexplicably running from their noses and mouths. After losing 153 of his herd, he decided to dissect the cattle to see what was going on inside. This meant that the chemical could seep into the ground and straight into the local water supply. They had to change churches three times. Then the lawyer stumbled across something he had never seen before in his entire career. Bilott’s investigations forced DuPont into paying for the largest health study in history which found a link between C8 and numerous health issues including various cancers, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis. But Rob Bilott’s Fight Is Far From Over. Then they began acting strangely. Dark Waters Tells the True Story of the Lawyer Who Took DuPont to Court and Won. I was looking at these documents thinking, I must be the only person outside the company who knows what’s going on. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. Our. He graduated from The Ohio State University College of Law in Columbus with a Law Degree in 1990. ‘‘We were getting frustrated,’’ he admitted. ‘‘I started seeing a story,’’ Bilott said. The story started in Parkersburg, West Virginia, home to about 32,000 people and about a three-hour drive due east of Cincinnati. When Robert Bilott (played by Mark Ruffalo in DARK WATERS) agreed to take Tennant's case, he was a corporate defense attorney — he represented companies like DuPont. However he knew the scale of this was much bigger, discovering that C8 levels in the Parkersburg area were 14 times higher than levels DuPont’s scientists considered safe. A group of teenagers drive through a hot summer night towards a gated lake in a remote part of town. C8, another laboratory-formed chemical, was used to smooth out the lumpiness of freshly manufactured Teflon, and its popularity quickly spread to fast food wrappers, waterproof clothing, electrical cables and pizza boxes. "We were able to deliver what we had promised to these folks seven years earlier. Once they dropped dead, the farmer decided to carry out his own autopsy and was petrified after discovering their organs were mysteriously tinged green. At least six public water systems in West Virginia and Ohio showed toxic levels of C8, including the system in Tennant's community. It just felt like the right thing to do. Naturally, Tennant's cattle drank from the creek — and became increasingly sick, until they either died from disease or Tennant had to put them down to end their suffering. After seven years, in 2011, scientists revealed that there was a ‘‘probable link’’ between PFOA and six diseases - including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis. The West Virginia-based farmer was convinced a toxic river that ran into his farmland was to blame, since the animals' strange symptoms began when his brother sold some land to a chemical company to use as a landfill site a little further upstream. “I’ve been dealing with this for almost three decades,” he says. That creek ran through land sold by Tennant's brother to DuPont but also went through his farm. She recalled how he would come home from work with fever, nausea, diarrhoea, vomiting - a group of ailments common among the workforce who nicknamed it "Teflon flu". Yet they were terrified of going against the revered DuPont, who had given work to so much of the local community. They developed stringy tails, malformed hooves, huge legions in their coats, hair loss, humped backs, blackened teeth and receding eyes, and were plagued by constant diarrhoea and have thick white slime leaking from their mouths. The kids are soon … Dark Waters' messed up true story reveals an emerging public health and environmental threat, the pervasiveness of "forever chemicals," and an alleged corporate cover-up. The dark waters of Parkersburg. C8 is part of a group of “forever” chemicals called PFAS that never break down but instead build up in humans and animals. One day, Tennant found two deer and two dead cattle not far from the river. However, until it was recognised by the government as a toxin, it wasn’t illegal. For other inquiries, Contact Us. Tennant raised the alarm in 1998, approaching everyone from local lawyers and politicians to vets and doctors. The company implemented these disposal practices before the first environmental laws were written, and because the chemical wasn't categorized as toxic by the EPA, DuPont was in the clear. A chemistry expert he had used put him on the right track - it was perfluorooctanoic acid. Teflon had been accidentally discovered by DuPont scientists in the 1950s. Even Arctic polar bears have it in their bloodstream. "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. Adam Brody’s Journey to The Kid Detective, Mark Ruffalo Could Finally Get His First Best Actor Nomination for Dark Waters, Dark Waters Continually Raises the Suspense, Director Todd Haynes Spills His Approach to True Drama Dark Waters. Bilott found evidence that DuPont not only leaked the chemical into the Ohio River, but they did so knowing the health risks. Rather than walk over to be milked like usual, they’d aggressively charge - in an odd, bow-legged fashion - at the farmers and often have to be shot. Dupont had sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency mentioning a substance in the landfill called "PFOA". It was in the same year that he was contacted by a farmer from Virginia which set in motion the case Dark Waters focuses on. Find showtimes and get your tickets to the drama today. “He [Earl] wasn’t dressed as most of our clients would dress. PFOA is indestructible and will never disintegrate, and is part of a group of compounds used in manufacturing now called "forever chemicals". View our online Press Pack. It gave them a flu-like illness dubbed Teflon flu. The drama opens in limited release today and may expand to an AMC near you in the coming weeks. I felt a connection to those folks.’’. They kept this knowledge a secret from both the public and the EPA for years. A sceptical Bilott agreed to meet the baseball cap-wearing farmer - but he was left aghast at the goings on at the farm, the evidence of which was shown to him on a homemade video tape. The True Story Behind Mark Ruffalo's Drama Dark Waters November 22nd, 2019 . By the 1990s, DuPont knew that PFOA - which had also been shown to be pretty much indestructible - caused cancerous testicular, pancreatic and liver tumours in lab animals, and a study linked it to testicular cancer in workers. The appalling story that inspired the film has been going on for more than two decades and shows no sign of ending. “Each new discovery shocked me more. That class action of 70,000 people is not the end of the story. “But he wasn’t there to impress, he wanted someone to believe him and do something about it. It has since been linked to six diseases, including cancer, and birth defects - with one child born with a single nostril and a serrated eyelid - and is today present in the blood of millions who have either drunk contaminated water or used their products in cooking. explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. People would walk out of restaurants when they entered. Unknown to the family, the business was actually disposing of a dangerous chemical called PFOA - properly known as perfluorooctanoic acid - as a quick and cheap way of getting rid of it. I knew their lawyers and I was sure they’d want to get to the bottom of it, I actually felt it would be a fairly small matter. Yet, when Wilbur confronted the company, he was simply told poor farming was to blame, and met with an audacious cover-up... Tennant and his four siblings were tragically forced to start a cattle farm with just seven cows after their father abandoned them. ‘‘It became apparent what was going on: They had known for a long time that this stuff was bad.’’. In 1984 they realised that it was present in the water supply. As they dive in they remark how unseasonably warm it is, and we see their figures flailing in the murky water. Bilott got a court order in the autumn of 2000 that forced the company to hand over boxes of files, including confidential studies conducted by DuPont scientists. Phil Collins's wife dumped him with ‘I’ve found someone else’ text, Moment Shannan Watts sent cops 'message about her murder from beyond the grave', Gemma Collins looks slimmer than ever after getting 'permanent contour' on her face, Philip Schofield puffs on cigarette during night out with pals, X Factor's Honey G shows off two stone weight loss and reveals she's a size 12, ©News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. The company then began dumping the waste product into surrounding waters in the following decades, something they covered up. Another person who appears as themselves in the new film is Bucky Bailey, 35, who was born with a single nostril and a deformed face. The true scale of the scandal quickly became apparent to Bilott when he realised that DuPont had knowingly been poisoning thousands of nearby residents with C8 for decades.

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