BNSF sued for cancer

[MichaelSol]

  There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking.  Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer.  Was she overweight?  Does stomach cancer run in her family?  Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? 

And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a reduced risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.

The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous.

Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?

Not on your life.

 

 

 

[solzrules]

A town with a tie treatment plant, a town practically saturated in creosote, and the creosote came from somewhere else? 

Yes, that is possible.  Many industries use creosote to treat wood.  The power company uses it to treat electric poles - otherwise we would be replacing those every 4 years too.  Lumber companies in the days before pressure treated wood (the green stuff) used creosote to treat structural lumber.  Drilling through 120 year old wood stinks REAL bad.  Yes, I'll admit that the fact that there is a tie plant in the town would be the obvious source, but the are other sources too.  Her husband worked for the plant for 30 some years and he is fine.  His wife is not. 

And this was the only town that used creosote treated joists -- or had a high incidence of cancer from them? 

My point being there are other sources of creosote, some of them a lot closer to the house where this woman lived for 30 years than the tie plant that was a mile away.  They found creosote in the attic, right?  Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes?  Or in the dresser where they kept those clothes?  Did anyone test the lumber in the house? 

Whew, a creosote plant, dioxin, a chip burner with no pollution controls, old ties burned out in the open, a creosote-polluted water supply, the plant manager didn't know that creosote was dangerous, the safety committee was never told anything about the stuff, 200 people in a town of 1700 have [or had] various rare cancers .... and the railroad had "nothing to do with it?"

 That needs to proven, and I'll give you this - based on your posts that I've read I'll admit that this isn't nearly as frivilous as I first assumed.  But you have written the railroad off as being responsible for the problem when that hasn't been proven.  Obviously I am sympathetic with the family - cancer is not an easy thing to deal with and it can be very hard on the family.  I doubt there are many people here who haven't known someone that was affected by cancer.  But I'll ask this - is there a proven link between creosote and cancer?  I do not accept lawyers spouting statistics that conveniently support their lawsuit as scientific certainty. 

News item:

Some workers in Somerville say that ...  workers there handled creosote with their bare hands and wore it home on their clothes.  They say workers even burned treated ties at night, spreading what they say were toxic fumes over the town.

Now, some say that exposure is killing them.

"The problem is we don't know what we're catching because every cancer seems to be some rare form of cancer," said Dennis Davis, who can rattle off more than two dozen people from Somerville with cancer.  "It's like a plague has come down on us."

This year, he joined the list.

"(The doctors) diagnosed that I have pancreatic cancer," he said.

Pancreatic cancer is not rare, people die from that all the time.  My best friend's mother died from it, and believe me, to my best friend it seemed like the rarest form of cancer in the world.  This was probably because only he had to deal with his mother passing away over a two year period - no one else seemed to care.  When you go through something like that, you tend to feel very alone. 

Next question - how many of these people making claims against the factory are in good health and suing the plant?  Are they still employed? 

That's why Davis joined a list of more than 160 other Somerville residents touched by cancer taking on the railway in a company town.

"This has been the most horrific, awful thing I've been involved in my entire life and it's sad and sickening," he said.

I don't think anyone would debate that cancer is horrific.  But it is not limited to those who lived near the tie plant. 

Faust never worked at the plant, but her husband does, and ...  she laundered his clothes blanketed with creosote.  She says she ate vegetables from her garden, which she now believes was tainted with ash from the improperly burned creosote. Her garden was trimmed with railroad ties. 

All of these things need to be proven.  At this point, she is trying to play to a sympathetic jury - I have cancer and I beleive it come for so and so.  Yes, the company will appear to be taking candy from a baby in that they are questioning her motives, but then again if someone decided they are dying from lung cancer and they believe it was because of oak sawdust (proven to cause lung cancer by the way, the stuff is like asbestos), and HEY! guess what, you took up woodworking as a hobby 30 years ago and you have been cutting that stuff every day in your garage what are you going to do?  Roll over and acquiesce? 

   

"I handled it daily," she said.  "We were told it wouldn't hurt us."

The creosote got into the water supply. She drank toxic stew with every drink of water.

There are a great many things that get into the water supply that you drink every day.  Proof?  Where is the evidence that she has?  This would be something for the civil case, I guess.

The argument that she might have gotten cancer anyway is an old and cruel defense tactic: "she was probably going to die anyway, so what if we also poisoned her and just sped it up?"

There is always a problem of ultimate causation of cancer in humans; however, it's not a defense to say we could just let this stuff go all over, on the workers, in their clothes, in the air, into their food, and into their water -- even though we know it is carcenogenic and just forgot to tell the plant manager -- because they were all going to die someday from something, and whatever they die from its probably their own fault anyway.

No one on here is making that argument, not even close.  Let's not sensationalize. 

[MichaelSol]

  They found creosote in the attic, right?  Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? 

I suppose she kept her house clean?

Your post is mainly an anti-lawyer rant. Aside from a profound misunderstanding of the system, I see no place for that on Trains forums.

If you are so interested in people's motives -- go back to 1975, when the Santa Fe Railroad was on plenty of notice by that time that creosote and PCP represented profound health hazards, and what their motive was for making what I suspect was -- it practically had to be -- a conscious decision to not spend $25 million on retrofitting that tie plant, knowing that by refusing to do so, they would continue to release known carcinogens into a town's air, water and soil.

Go back to page 1 of this thread:

Amen - Santa Fe and Kirby Lumber were more than a little obsessed with the toxic aspects of the treating plant. Especially where large amounts of chemical were involved. (My experience goes back into the eighties)

Except that the sworn testimony of company officers says the exact opposite. That they chose not to be "more than a little obsessed" when it came to this plant, and that the decision "not to be obsessed" was, to the Santa Fe Railroad, all about money, at the known risk to people's health and lives.

The "little people" you are concerned about, by the way, who don't have high paid consultants and high paid lawyers with unlimited litigation budgets at their disposal and probably didn't see any stock options or bonuses either when that extra $25 million came out to the bottom line.

 

[n012944]

  There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking.  Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer.  Was she overweight?  Does stomach cancer run in her family?  Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood? 

And you intentionally left out all of the characertistics that demonstrate a lowered risk of stomach cancer in people like Linda. And there is no good reason to intentionally mislead people except to try and prove that this is Linda Faust's fault because you like that idea of personal blame and that's your agenda here for some weird reason. Frankly doesn't have much to do with the discussion.

The fact is that 99.9% of people who smoke don't get stomach cancer. And this is why the studies are carefully worded that smoking "can" cause stomach cancer, because it actually usually doesn't and the link is tenuous.

Is the cancer/illness link to creosote, PCP's and Dioxin "tenuous"?

Not on your life.

 

 

 

 I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks.  Why double post them??  I was not intentionally misleading anyone.  You have no idea what my intentions are, and stop acting as though you do.  I am not trying to prove that it was this womans fault for getting cancer. If I was why would I bring up blood type or family history factors?  These are no ones "fault." I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault.  You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not.  There are alot of reasons as to why this woman could have cancer, and smoking is only one of them.

[selector]

Well, the gentleman has thrown out an olive branch of sorts, admitting that he has made an error.  Perhaps that will permit us to move forward?  Can we accept that there was a mix-up, a misapprehension, and now finalize this thread in some way? 

We humans sure live complicated lives.  We learn, too late, that we will all die from something, and often it is from ignorance in an early pursuit.  If we go to far with the logic of recompense, we will all have to go back to where our great, great, great grandparents lived and cede our homes to the aboriginals.  And every other thing that was right back then and wrong now. Once again, the courts will have to determine what was contravened and what was known.  Additionally, liability must be clearly established in light of the policies and laws extant when the alleged misdeeds were carried out...on all sides.

My final comment, I hope, is that we can move forward.   Please.  Let's try.

-Crandell

[solzrules]

[  They found creosote in the attic, right?  Why didn't they find it next to the washing machine where she washed the clothes? 

I suppose she kept her house clean.

I can't possibly believe that is your only response to this.

[n012944]

Michael, I got a lot out of your long reply above, two or three posts higher.  Nothing personal, but I offer this comment: I didn't get a lot out of the first two lines, and not from the last 15 or so, where you were making a general comment about how others participate.  I had hoped we could move beyond that in an attempt to keep focused on the issues and debate them.

-Crandell

Well, I suppose the fact that he stated that I called someone a "moron" earlier -- a false statement just designed to stir the pot -- and that he used the words "mean old greedy BN" weren't meant to bring his usual mistatements and antagonisms to this thread. There's a history with this gentlemen. Its like a moth to a flame.

And yes, my comments do go to how he participates, and to his motives for doing so. His first two posts here were clearly designed to start a fight, and when that didn't work, he posted something exactly the opposite of what he earlier stated -- demonstrating that the facts clearly don't matter with this individual -- he's got a different purpose here and its not honest discussion.

 

Again, I admit that I was wrong in my first post, SMOKING DOES CAUSE STOMACH CANCER.  I was under the impression that it didn't, and I was wrong.  I am not sure why you keep on this one.

[matthewsaggie]

I am going to stay away from the legal issues here, though I think Mr. Sol makes some valid points. I will say that in the period from 1970 to 1974, when I attended university 20 miles away from Sommerville, I used to go there often to photograph trains (I have some great pictures of the Texas Chief with ASTF F-units, along with blue F's on the sulphur train. 

I will say that the creosote was everywhere in the town. You could smell it from 2-3 miles out of town, they were burning ties in the open one time I saw, the ground around the tie plant was black with it, it was tracked onto the sidewalks and even the station platform and probably through out the town.  Just what I saw at the time. 

[MichaelSol]

 I was responding to your post that had the characertistics of some of things that lower her risks.  Why double post them??  I was not intentionally misleading anyone. 

This is getting bizarre. You posted your "new" opinion on why her risks were higher - I responded by posting both aspects of her risk factors, including the ones that you pointedly left out, the ones that suggested a lower risk for her. And you left them out because they did not support your agenda to show that BN cannot, ever, be at fault for anything. And that is your agenda, which you clearly stated:

I am just showing how it could not be the BN's fault.  You seem to have already made your judgement on this case, I have not. 

This is gibberish, and pretty much how these threads end up, with these same participants. Time for the lock.

 

 

 

[n012944]

Interesting, a lifetime of Smoking had nothing to do with it, yeahhh...right!

Smoking causes stomach cancer?

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cancer

According to the goverment, yes it does.

"Cigarette smoking causes 87 percent of lung cancer deaths (1). Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both men and women (3). Smoking is also responsible for most cancers of the larynx, oral cavity and pharynx, esophagus, and bladder. In addition, it is a cause of kidney, pancreatic, cervical, and stomach cancers (2, 4), as well as acute myeloid leukemia (2)."

I am sure that to some people here, the cancer was still caused by the mean old greedy BN, and not a lifetime of abuse of a deadly habit.

First you said "no" it isn't, now you say "yes", it is.

Internet research is a fickle mistress.

You leave out the fact that the rate of stomach cancer in the United States is extremely low. Indeed, to find a correlation between smoking and stomach cancer, one has to go to studies of other populations where stomach cancer rates are much higher, in order to get enough of a sampling to even measure.  

If she were not a smoker, Linda Faust's risk of stomach cancer would be substantially less than .01% over her lifetime. In the town, the likelihood that someone would develop stomach cancer over a 78 year lifespan is low -- a town of 1700 might see 8 cases over the 78 year period. 

Linda Faust has an infection with a bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori, which increases the risk of stomach cancer. Combined with smoking, Linda's risk of stomach cancer during her lifetime increased seven-fold, because of the presence of both the bacteria and being a smoker. All the way up to three hundredths of a percent risk. 

On the other hand, Linda Faust represents several conditions that show reduced risk of stomach cancer. I don't know why you would have left that out. Perhaps an unintentional oversight.

Linda is a Caucasian female, age 47. All of these represent lower risk factors, because men tend to develop stomach cancer more often than woman, Hispanics and Blacks more frequently than Caucasians, and most people develop stomach cancer in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Given a higher risk because of smoking and H. pylori, Linda enjoys a reduced risk because of her demographic. Statistically, it is still unlikely that Linda would develop stomach cancer, and particularly at the age that she was diagnosed with it.

Over a ten year period, a town the size of Somerville might be likely to develop, at most, one case of stomach cancer, most likely in Hispanic man over the age of 60. The town itself, at this point in time, statistically should have no cases of stomach cancer.

It has 12 such cases. Linda is part of a cluster of stomach cancer cases which is over 60 times the national rate of stomach cancer.

Because she belongs to a demographic that, even with smoking, is less likely to get stomach cancer, because she got it at a substantially earlier age than is typical for stomach cancer victims, and because she is part of very unusual cluster.

As with most comments in this vein, the idea here is obviously to offer something off the internet, and conclude "she smokes, she got stomach cancer, she deserves it."

And if "mean old greedy BN" just happened to put known carcinogens into the air, water, and ground for well over 30 years -- well, that just proves it must be Linda's fault!

As usual, with contentions offered by certain specific posters, closer evaluation all too often tells a different story -- and it's interesting how often this seems to be true with certain posters, when more, rather than fewer, facts are brought to bear.

It is obvious that this particular poster brings a personal animus to the discussion -- he's posted twice just to engage in personal attacks. He does it on nearly every thread I ever post to. This is the third post, and his reference to "mean old greedy BN" in the sarcastic fashion makes it clear that he has his mind made up on this serious event, and it has nothing to do with the facts at all.

Rather, and this goes to my initial gripe: it is the knee-jerk reaction that governs certain posters, notwithstanding any facts to the contrary: "railroad good, people bad".

Always.

No matter what.

 

 

I didn't leave anything out.  I answered a question that YOU asked.  There is a link between smoking and stomach cancer.Whatever the BN did, Linda also put a known carcinogen into her body by smoking.  Which by the way DOUBLES her chance of stomach cancer.There are many things that we don't know about Linda that also could increase her risk for cancer.  Was she overweight?  Does stomach cancer run in her family?  Did she have some sort of stomach surgey before she had cancer? Does she have type A blood?  All of these increase the chance for stomach cancer.  Here is the kicker, there is a chance that any of these things where to blame for Linda's cancer.  And btw I don't feel that ANYONE deserves to have cancer, no matter what they have done in their lifetime, and I am not quite sure why you would imply that I would.  As for my two other postings, you chastised other posters for judging from afar, but is seems that you are a

An "expensive model collector"