While residents of East Palestine, Ohio were told repeatedly that their air and
water quality was completely fine after a train derailed in their town and
essentially released toxic chemicals into their environment.
Turns out that some of the individuals doing the testing actually fell ill and
it wasn't widely reported that they had fallen ill.
So this was an exclusive report by CNN,
one of the examples of good reporting from CNN.
And before we get to who got sick, why they got sick and
what the excuse is in terms of why the public didn't know about it.
Let's just do a quick refresher and
give you context into what happened during this train derailment.
So 11 cars carrying more than a million pounds of hazardous chemicals
ended up derailing in East Palestine, a small town in Ohio.
Now the chemical spilled into the soil and air and
into two small creeks that run through the town.
A car carrying flammable vinyl chloride became unstable,
sparking fears of a massive explosion.
So they decided to do what was referred to as a controlled burn.
Although there are some conflicting reports as to whether they needed to do
a controlled burn, there could have been a safer ways of doing this.
Nearby residents were evacuated while small holes were punched in the rail car.
So vinyl chloride could be channeled into a trench where it was burned.
A black mushroom cloud rose over the town and left ash and
soot on cars and buildings for miles around afterwards.
The CDC Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry sent 15
people to the area to conduct an assessment of chemical exposures.
And one of the things that the investigators do is they go to households
near the derailment site to ask them if they're experiencing any symptoms
related to exposure to these toxic chemicals.
And I'll give you the results of their study in just a moment, but
before we do the iinvestigators, some of them got real sick.
Now, remember they sent 15 CDC employees to do this investigation.
Seven US Government investigators briefly fell ill in early March while studying
the possible health impacts of a toxic train derailment in East Palestine Ohio,
the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed to CNN.
So, Francesca 7 out of the 15, nearly half of them got ill.
And they suffered from symptoms like sore throat, headaches, coughing,
nausea, basically the same symptoms that the East Palestine Ohio residents
were experiencing.
But we're told repeatedly everything's gonna be ok, you're gonna be fine,
everything is safe.
>> Absolutely, I mean, if only this were in Cuba and then we could call it,
the East Palestine syndrome.
And do, 60 minutes, which we're gonna talk about reports all
about the syndrome that must be related to the or something?
No, I'm making that joke because obviously this is why TYT and your coverage is so
important.
It's because this is a story that a lot of mainstream news outlets have left like
a toy that they're done playing with.
It's done, it's over, we're not gonna follow up, and because it's corporate
malfeasance, it fingers both the Biden administration and Republicans.
We don't want to touch it, no, this is exactly why we have to talk about this.
And of course, there were people who were gonna get sick, and
of course the residents are gonna be like, see what happens.
This is mind you after the head of the EPA goes and drinks the water performative.
I think there's two or three moments where different officials are drinking
the water, just a total slap in the face.
And so, yes, it's a little bit delicious sort of hypocrisy and
justice maybe, but they didn't want to necessarily
be there cleaning up the mess of a essentially
a massive railroad barons malfeasance.
Yeah, they didn't wanna be the ones to be the guinea pigs, and yet here they are as
if they hadn't been through enough in these last three years of the pandemic.
>> Yeah, it's just so frustrating because it's important to have government
institutions that you can rely on to tell you the truth.
That you can take their reporting, take their investigation and
figure out whether or not it's safe to go back to your home in East Palestine.
And in this case, I mean, the argument was, well,
we decided that the public didn't really need to know about the seven
CDC investigators who experienced these symptoms.
Because when they were told to go home and rest, their symptoms were alleviated and
they were able to get back to work and do their thing.
No, no, but you don't get to make that decision,
the local community there deserves to know about the reality of the situation.
They deserve to know every moment of that investigation, what the outcome was,
whether or not the CDC employees fell ill as they were doing their investigation.
Because they need to make decisions about how to move forward,
do they go back to their homes, is it safe for their kids?
But there's more to this, that's pretty incredible, so again, all of the symptoms
that they experienced were consistent with what the residents were experiencing.
And by the way, apparently continue to experience but
they keep getting told that everything is safe, everything is fine.
So early results of the Ohio ACE survey, so that's the survey that the CDC did,
show that more than half of the 514 residents who have taken it so
far have experienced symptoms after the derailment.
So, what are the top symptoms?
Well, 74% of the residents said that they were experiencing headaches.
61% said anxiety, 53% say coughing, 53% say fatigue,
50% reported that they were experiencing pain, irritation or burning of the skin.
And another 50% say or
50% of them also say that they experience stuffy nose and sinus congestion.
Now, the CDC spokesperson said in a statement to CNN quote symptoms
resolved for most team members later the same afternoon and
everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours.
Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects, so
in their minds, everything is ok.
I mean, they got better, they were able to go back to work within 24 hours, so that's
the reason why we just didn't really feel the need to report this widely.
Amd why are we finding out about this now?
Because the investigators symptoms improved soon after they left the area,
the incident was not reported to the public.
A CDC official said noting that reports of illnesses experienced by CDC personnel
on the job wouldn't ordinarily be disclosed.
Why not?
Why wouldn't they ordinarily be disclosed?
Especially if they're investigating something,
a chemical release into the environment that could impact the local
community's health, it absolutely should be ordinarily disclosed.
And then not only did the CDC experience this, apparently, there were workers for
the Environmental Protection Agency who also reported similar symptoms.
They got sick, but since their symptoms got better within 24 hours,
apparently they went back to work and didn't feel the need to widely report
this or widely report the illnesses to both the press or the local community.
Any final thoughts, Francesca.
>> No, the biggest thing is they get to go home, right,
that they get to leave East Palestine.
The residents do not have that option and all of this is to save money for
everyone to keep passing the buck back and forth between, again,
corporate greed and government.
And when you hollow out places like the CDC or the EPA or FEMA and
you gouge them, yeah, they're not equipped.
So I understand we should put these residents up in hotels,
which is what they shouldn't do for months and months and
months until they know it is safe to move back.
But again, we don't really have that infrastructure,
we don't have that infrastructure when it comes to climate change.
We don't have that infrastructure when it comes to corporations who are gonna do
late stage capitalism all over us and make us clean up their messes, time and
time again.
Look, you can't, it both ways, if you want the free market to be able to use us as
their little garbage bin, then you better help and assist people.
So when these things inevitably do go wrong, people aren't stranded.
Absolutely, the local community absolutely deserves to be paid damages.
They deserve to be put up in hotels where they and their children are safe for
many of the environmental impact here.
But more importantly, just taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture.
I just don't really wanna hear much from the Biden administration about what
the Trump administration was able to do unilaterally in rolling back regulations
pertaining to these rail companies.
The Biden administration can undo what the Trump administration did,
they can do the same thing unilaterally but have chosen not to.
So why haven't they re implemented the very regulations pertaining to
the breaking systems that the Trump administration had repealed from
the Obama administration?
I would like some answers on that, so while it is absolutely true that the Trump
administration deregulated these trains and made them less safe.
The Biden administration could have reversed what the Trump administration did
and they have chosen not to at least so far, and that is a big problem in my eyes.
And if you're gonna criticize the previous administration,
you have to take ownership for your failures as well.
Has not done enough in response to this and we keep hearing more and
more stories about these train derailments.
They will continue happening as long as these rail companies know that they can
operate the way that they've been operating with impunity.