Judge Dismisses Cancer Suit

A Pennsylvania state court judge dismissed the first of 32 lawsuits charging that chemicals dumped by Dow Chemical’s Rohm and Haas subsidiary caused a number of McCullom Lake, Ill., residents to develop brain tumors. Rohm and Haas operated a specialty chemical plant that residents say dumped trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride in a lagoon beside the plant. The case first went to trial about eight months ago, but the judge declared a mistrial because of concerns over the validity of testimony from an expert witness for the plaintiff (C&EN, Jan. 31, page 34). The retrial only recently got under way. Plaintiff attorney Aaron Freiwald, of Layser & Freiwald, did not return calls for comment. A Rohm and Haas spokesman notes that “sound science does not support the theory that a cluster of brain tumors exists” in McCullom Lake.