Sterigenics: Battles Won—War Ongoing, Part 1

On February 23 at a DuPage County Board meeting, the community group Stop Sterigenics was recognized with a proclamation honoring the organization’s service to county residents. Stop Sterigenics has made vital contributions both to local residents as well as people throughout the country, and continues to make its influence felt. So now feels like a good time to remind everyone of Stop Sterigenics’s historic impact. We also can use this much-deserved acknowledgement to remind ourselves that there is still much we all need to do to honor and advance the work Stop Sterigenics has begun, using the example of an offshoot of Stop Sterigenics’s success which also has more than just local applications.

For those of you who don’t know the history: In a letter dated July 6, 1984 (a copy of the original can be seen here), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) warned Griffith Laboratories that its planned medical-instrument sterilizing plant in Willowbrook, Illinois, which would release ethylene oxide gas into the environment, posed health risks to the surrounding communities. The company went ahead and opened anyway. Over thirty-four years later on February 18, 2019, Griffith Labs—now a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar conglomerate whose corporate headquarters is in Oakbrook and is named Sterigenics—was forced to close those Willowbrook plants as health studies showed significant increases in cancer (especially breast cancer and lymphomas), miscarriages, and premature births for those who lived and worked in proximity to the plants.

My wife and I were impacted by the entire range of EtO issues, as you can read about here. We did not live near the plants, but had spent over two decades each teaching at Hinsdale South High School, less than a mile from the pollution’s source, and been subjected to EtO for hours every day when we went to work. In an irony only a retired literature teacher could appreciate, I had gone to school early almost every day in order to workout in the exercise area in South’s basement; EtO is heavier than air and tends to accumulate in low areas, so I probably got an extra heavy dose every day I thought I was doing something good for my health. To add to this irony lesson, my wife was a physical education/health teacher, and was often outside, the better to encourage fitness, thus making her more vulnerable to the air-borne gas. Fortunately, we both have coped with our illnesses (her breast cancer was treated in 2002-03 and my chronic lymphocytic leukemia was diagnosed in 2019) relatively well. But just as we were dealing with the repercussions of my diagnosis, we learned that both our conditions as well as the fertility/birth problems we’d endured over the years had a common source—Sterigenics. Fortunately, by the time we had pieced together what had occurred, a grass-roots community movement was already doing battle on everyone’s behalf—Stop Sterigenics.

When a comprehensive health report became available in 2018 which showed just how much illness could be related to Sterigenics emissions, community members organized to form what became Stop Sterigenics. These heroes lobbied local, state, and national government agencies to eliminate the health risks of the two Sterigenics plants in Willowbrook, succeeding in the temporary closing referenced above, which became permanent in September 2019, when Sterigenics fled Willowbrook, citing an “unstable legislative regulatory landscape ” as the reason for the permanent closure, when anyone with the slightest knowledge of what happened knew the truth: Thanks to Stop Sterigenics, a deadly pollution source was cast out of the area, with its corporate sponsor slinking away, leaving hundreds of personal injury lawsuits in its wake. We need look no further than Sterigenics’ own actions to understand the company was both negligent and willful in its pollution. The shut-down in Willowbrook, however, can only be viewed as single victory in a long war which will continue for many years. Sterigenics has so far not admitted to any wrong-doing nor conceded that its release of EtO caused harm to those who lived and worked nearby. And as lawsuits wend their way through the courts, there are still many places where EtO is still released in the US, to say nothing of plans for more throughout the world. Ethylene oxide continues to be a problem, and has only worsened recently.

But Stop Sterigenics did succeed in Willowbrook and has helped to spread word of the dangers these plants still pose to unsuspecting millions. It is a source of pride to this retired teacher that many graduates of Hinsdale South High School have been critical in both the formation and the work of Stop Sterigenics. Not only have these stalwarts ended the threat to the Willowbrook area, but they have committed to ridding the world of this dangerous pollutant. This steady progress has been interrupted due to the pandemic, however, as medical sterilization plants have sought exemptions from stricter regulations in order to provide personal protection equipment (PPE) during the covid crisis. So now, as we finally start to see some progress in dealing with the five-alarm emergency that has been the pandemic (and for which we even now have to maintain strict vigilance and keep wearing masks, dammit!), we should recognize that we still have much to do when it comes to the poison Sterigenics and other companies are still spewing into our air, and stay resolute in our resolve to deal with the repercussions of this many-decades-long degradation of our environment and health.

One issue which has been of particular interest to me can also offer us an example of the challenges still present despite the successes associated with shutting down Sterigenics, Willowbrook. With the plants now defunct and with no chance of their ever returning (to Willowbrook only, sorry to say), many might see this localized problem as solved, put to bed, done. Unfortunately, when a problem which has been festering for decades finally comes to light, making sure that everyone who may have been impacted by that problem knows what happened becomes a problem for which we don’t currently have many good solutions. How do we notify all the people exposed to the damaging EtO who no longer live in the area? Might there be families who lost a loved one due to an illness years ago caused by Sterigenics’s emissions, who have no idea the illness was caused by EtO or that they have legal rights to hold Sterigenics to account? Just because Sterigenics is no longer spewing its toxins in Willowbrook doesn’t mean that there aren’t still people totally ignorant of the fact that their breast cancer, lymphoma, and/or miscarriage can be traced back to the EtO put into the air where they used to live or work.

So in our next installment, we’ll review the lessons learned from on one small piece of the notification problem, which will better illustrate just what I’m talking about. Alarmed by the damage Sterigenics had inflicted and inspired by Stop Sterigenics, a group of past Hinsdale South employees began actions to ensure all those who’d worked there over the years had the facts about what had happened. Both infuriating and heartening, this story has much to teach us.

For a complete timeline and documentation on how the village of Willowbrook has kept track of the Sterigenics issues, see this link. For more on improving public schools, you can check out my eBook, excerpts of which can read here.