Takata’s Faulty Airbags Still Exact Toll as Recalls Lag
Suggestions;
1: I believe that in order to lower the toll of faulty airbags, the drivers should beware of how they are driving. Drivers should be more focused on their safety then answering phone calls and texts. During an inspection, when the driver is informed that their airbag is defaulted they should order a new air bag and during the waiting time frame try to use a different transportation, and if there is no other source of transportation, then be extra careful when driving. Such as no texting, no speeding, no answering calls.

2. What the airbag company should do is get affiliated with well build car mechanics and have them change the airbag for them instead of the company doing it itself. So, when the company is informed about a deflated airbag they should immediately send an airbag to the closest mechanic next to the customer. There the mechanic changes the airbag and his fees will be paid by the company.

“The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare”

1. What is PFOA and how did DuPont use it? Is PFOA a danger to the environment? How? If PFOA was/is a danger to the environment, why didn’t DuPont stop using it?

PFOA is short for perfluorooctanoic acid. DuPont started purchasing PFOA from 3M for use in the manufacturing of Teflon. 3M invented PFOA just four years earlier; it was used to keep coatings like Teflon from clumping during production. PFOA’s chemical structure made it uncannily resistant to degradation. It also bound to plasma proteins in the blood, traveling through each organ in the body. An internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public. DuPont decided against it. The risk was too great: Products manufactured with PFOA were an important part of DuPont’s business, worth $1 billion in annual profit.

2. What did Robert Billott obtain for his clients once he found out about DuPont’s behavior? Why didn’t he stop there?
Billiot obtain boxes containing thousands of unorganized documents. There were more than 110,000 pages in all, some half a century old. Bilott spent the next few months on the floor of his office, poring over the documents and arranging them in chronological order. In August 2000, Bilott called DuPont’s lawyer, Bernard Reilly, and explained that he knew what was going on. It was a brief conversation. The Tennants settled. The firm would receive its contingency fee. The whole business might have ended right there. But Bilott was not satisfied. He was irritated. To him DuPont had for decades been actively trying to conceal their actions. They knew this stuff was harmful, and they put it in the water anyway, and he had to take action on it.

3. Does the Environmental Protection Agency regulate all harmful chemicals? If not, which ones does it regulate? How did DuPont resolve this situation with the E.P.A.?
Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the E.P.A. can test chemicals only when it has been provided evidence of harm. When DuPont found out that E.P.A was receiving a letter informing that PFOA is being used at DuPont, they reacted quickly, requesting a gag order to block Bilott from providing the information he had discovered in the Tennant case to the government. A federal court denied it. Bilott sent his entire case file to the E.P.A. To which later DuPont’s went into a $16.5 million settlement with the E.P.A., which had accused the company of concealing its knowledge of PFOA’s toxicity and presence in the environment in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.

4. What is agency capture? (You might have to look outside the article to answer this question.) How did agency capture affect the measure of much PFOA could safely exist in water?
Agency capture is the defect whereby government agencies established to regulate industries end up being influenced and controlled by the companies the agencies were supposed to regulate.

5. Describe the medical-monitoring tort claim available in West Virginia and a few other states.
West Virginia had become one of the first states to recognize what is called, in tort law, a medical-monitoring claim. A plaintiff needs to prove only that he or she has been exposed to a toxin. If the plaintiff wins, the defendant is required to fund regular medical tests. In these cases, should a plaintiff later become ill, he or she can sue retroactively for damages.

6. What were the results of Robert Billott’s class action lawsuit against DuPont?
DuPont decided to settle the class-action suit. It agreed to install filtration plants in the six affected water districts if they wanted them and pay a cash award of $70 million. It would fund a scientific study to determine whether there was a between PFOA and any diseases. If such links existed, DuPont would pay for medical monitoring of the affected group in perpetuity. Until the scientific study came back with its results, class members were forbidden from filing personal-injury suits against DuPont. DuPont was providing clean water to the communities named in the suit.

7. Why wasn’t the resolution of the class action lawsuit the end of litigation for DuPont? What strains did this long delay take on others?
It wasn’t the end of litigation for DuPont, because 70,000 people were drinking poisoned water. Some had been doing so for decades. Therefore, Bilott file a class-action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of everyone whose water was tainted by PFOA. So in order to prove the point, 70,000 blood tests was taken place. The team of epidemiologists was flooded with medical data, and there was nothing DuPont could do to stop it. It took seven years for the results to come. However, during the waiting time Clients called Bilott to say that they had received diagnoses of cancer or that a family member had died. Among those who called was Jim Tennant. Wilbur, who had cancer, had died of a heart attack. Two years later, Wilbur’s wife died of cancer. Bilott began suffering strange attacks: His vision would blur, he couldn’t put on his socks, his arms felt numb. His doctors didn’t know what was happening. The attacks recurred periodically, bringing blurry vision, slurred speech and difficulty moving one side of his body. They struck suddenly, without warning, and their effects lasted days.

8. What did scientists find about any links between PFOA and physical health? What is the status of the litigation now?
In December 2011, after seven years, the scientists began to release their findings: there was a ‘‘probable link’’ between PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis. As of October, 3,535 plaintiffs have filed personal-injury lawsuits against DuPont.

9. How did DuPont change its business and business structure after this case?
As part of its agreement with the E.P.A., DuPont ceased production and use of PFOA in 2013. The five other companies in the world that produce PFOA are also phasing out production. DuPont, which is currently negotiating a merger with Dow Chemical, last year severed its chemical businesses: They have been spun off into a new corporation called Chemours. The new company has replaced PFOA with similar fluorine-based compounds designed to biodegrade more quickly the alternative considered and then discarded by DuPont more than 20 years ago.