Reveals the history and worldwide scope of plastics pollution, investigates…
Blue Vinyl
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
With humor, chutzpah and a piece of vinyl siding firmly in hand, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand and co-director and award-winning cinematographer Daniel B. Gold set out in search of the truth about polyvinyl chloride (PVC), America's most popular plastic. From Long Island to Louisiana to Italy, they unearth the facts about PVC and its effects on human health and the environment.
Back at the starter ranch, Helfand coaxes her terribly patient parents into replacing their vinyl siding on the condition that she can find a healthy, affordable alternative (and it has to look good!).
A detective story, an eco-activism doc, and a rollicking comedy, BLUE VINYL puts a human face on the dangers posed by PVC at every stage of its life cycle, from factory to incinerator. Consumer consciousness and the 'precautionary principle' have never been this much fun.
'Funny and irreverent! One of Sundance's best documentaries.' Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
'Blue Vinyl is a kind of ecological detective story that provides humor along with information...[a] strongly recommended addition to school, college, and community library collections.' The Midwest Book Review
'That rare muckraking film with a sense of humor.' Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
'Directors Helfand and Daniel Gold brilliantly link unlikely stories and characters across continents, race, and class.' Caroline Libresco, Sundance Film Festival.
'Scary and hilarious!' Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
'The Green Building Movement may have just acquired its first cult film.' Environmental Building News
'Blue Vinyl hits your psyche like a ten-ton brick. If you care at all about the future you'll see this film.' Theo Colborn, author, Our Stolen Future
'Blue Vinyl is highly recommended for upper level high school students, colleges and the general public. School media centers, college/university libraries and public libraries would benefit by having this video in their collections.' Ronald E. Saskowski, Educational Media Reviews Online
'The kind of movie you could name an ice cream after.' Ben Cohen, President, TrueMajority.org, Co-Founder of Ben and Jerry's
'Kudos to Helfand for her five-year struggle to get her parents -- and us -- to see the light.' Now Toronto
'This excellent documentary is well-filmed and edited. Helfand and Gold have used some very interesting techniques to capture the story...Sound is excellent and choice of music is eclectic. [Blue Vinyl] supports any number of inquiries into the role of science and industry in our global society.' Cliff Glaviano, Educational Media Reviews Online
'An amusing and irreverent but also resonant expose...Entertaining in its sardonic style...Blue Vinyl allows the industry its rather laughable say, but presents a scientifically persuasive case that PVC chemicals are now getting into the atmosphere, groundwater, and the food chain. Recommended.' Video Librarian
'Highly recommended' Library Journal
'Blue Vinyl...is alternately hilarious and disturbing...Helfand's style of filmmaking is similar to Michael Moore's, except that she is less confrontational. When interviewing corporate executives, she incorporates a subtle, naive approach to tease out self-incriminating statements...Incorporating animation into the film is not only creative but also educational...Although it is not your typical film used in anthropology classes, its emphasis on environmental issues and community activism are very important. Showing examples of corporate culture and raising the issue of corporate social responsibility (or the lack thereof) are also important points of discussion for the classroom. Considering the ever-increasing number of business majors in the university population, it would be a very important film for both undergraduate and graduate students.' Jeanne M. Fitzsimmons, School of American Research, for American Anthropologist
'Funny and unpretentious... It brings up honest questions, such as where this product came from, why we are using it, and if we don't want to use it, what alternatives are out there. Most people feel that on some level there is something wrong with vinyl siding, but not everyone knows why. This film exposes the fact that vinyl siding is, in every way, a hollow product.' Mark Bernard Steck, BUILDERnews
Citation
Main credits
Helfand, Judith (Director)
Helfand, Judith (Producer)
Gold, Daniel B (Director)
Gold, Daniel B (Producer)
Gold, Daniel B (Cinematographer)
Parker, Julia D (Producer)
Other credits
Directors, Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold; producers, Judith Helfand, Daniel B. Gold, Julia D. Parker; editor, Sari Gilman; director of photography, Daniel B. Gold; music composed by Marty Erlich ... [et al.].
Distributor subjects
Activism; Air Pollution; American Studies; Art/Architecture; Climate Change/Global Warming; Community; Consumerism; Ecology; Environment; Green Building; Humanities; Humor; Law; Pollution; Science, Technology, Society; Technology; Toxic Chemicals; Urban StudiesKeywords
[00:00:01.08]
[lively music]
[00:00:10.04]
[insects chirping]
[00:00:19.09]
[lively music]
[00:00:21.07]
- [Judith] I liked the
house better like this.
[00:00:24.00]
When it was red, and made of wood.
[00:00:27.02]
- What I would like you to
do is to go around the house
[00:00:29.04]
with your video camera and take pictures
[00:00:33.00]
of the farkrokhn house, the red wood,
[00:00:38.04]
and then you'll realize
that it has to be redone.
[00:00:42.08]
- [Judith] Yeah, mom,
what does farkrokhn mean?
[00:00:45.08]
- Rotten.
[00:00:47.02]
- See that.
[00:00:48.03]
What is it?
[00:00:49.02]
Rotten wood, and it's damp.
[00:00:51.03]
It didn't even rain today.
[00:00:53.00]
- [Florence] Come close.
[00:00:54.09]
Do you see how soft it is?
[00:00:57.04]
- Squeeze the wood.
[00:00:58.09]
Press the wood, nevermind the video.
[00:01:03.09]
- But vinyl, it's not
even a natural fiber.
[00:01:07.01]
- [Ted] It looks so much like wood.
[00:01:09.03]
- What, does it have like little
[00:01:10.02]
- Yes.
- wood things?
[00:01:11.02]
- Oh, you got fake
little wood things on it.
[00:01:14.04]
You got like, what do you call that, dad?
[00:01:16.04]
- It's embossed.
- Embossed.
[00:01:18.01]
- You embossed it with fake wood print.
[00:01:20.06]
- Think of it as an outer coat.
[00:01:23.07]
It's threadbare, it's worn.
[00:01:25.07]
It needs replacement.
[00:01:28.09]
- I can understand your attachment to,
[00:01:32.00]
you know, your childhood
and where you grew up,
[00:01:35.02]
but lots of things happen in
life, and changes are made,
[00:01:39.07]
and we have to be able to roll with it.
[00:01:43.08]
I think you're reacting to this
[00:01:45.03]
like it's a loss in your life.
[00:01:47.06]
You're gonna lose a lot
of other precious things
[00:01:49.06]
in your life as time goes on.
[00:01:53.04]
And you already have, you've
had one terrible loss.
[00:01:56.07]
So I just feel you're
overreacting a little bit.
[00:02:04.03]
- [Judith] The loss my
mother was referring to
[00:02:06.06]
was the radical hysterectomy
I had when I was 25.
[00:02:11.02]
Back when she was pregnant with me,
[00:02:13.02]
my mother was given a drug
called DES, a synthetic estrogen
[00:02:17.09]
that was supposed to prevent miscarriage.
[00:02:21.05]
Turned out the pharmaceutical
industry knew all along
[00:02:24.04]
that it didn't.
[00:02:26.01]
What it did do was give me a
rare form of cervical cancer.
[00:02:33.08]
Up to that point, the dangers
of toxic chemical exposure
[00:02:37.03]
hadn't really worried me.
[00:02:40.07]
But then, I started
questioning everything.
[00:02:43.04]
[planks banging]
[00:02:44.08]
- They're not keeping the shutters?
[00:02:46.09]
- [Judith] I don't know
about the shutters.
[00:02:50.01]
Don't, you know.
[00:02:52.02]
Are they made of wood?
[00:02:53.08]
- No, these are vinyl.
- They're vinyl?
[00:02:55.07]
Oh, they'll probably keep them.
[00:02:57.03]
- You think they'll keep them?
- Oh, sure, yeah.
[00:02:59.07]
- [Florence] Tell Jerry to save
those shutters, they're new.
[00:03:02.05]
- [Judith] Okay.
[00:03:03.09]
Jerry.
- Yep.
[00:03:05.00]
- Did you hear my mother?
- Yeah, I did.
[00:03:06.04]
- [Judith] Save the shutters, they're new.
[00:03:12.09]
Everyone assured me vinyl siding was safe,
[00:03:15.06]
and would only let off toxic gas
[00:03:17.06]
in the rare event of a house fire.
[00:03:21.00]
But, after my experience with DES
[00:03:23.09]
I figured any material so
loaded with synthetic chemicals
[00:03:28.00]
had to pose some kind of risk.
[00:03:30.03]
[panels rattling]
[00:03:33.08]
Later, I asked my dad, "If you had known
[00:03:36.06]
that over the course of its lifecycle,
[00:03:38.07]
from the factory to the incinerator,
[00:03:41.00]
vinyl produces a wide
array of deadly pollutants
[00:03:44.03]
that threaten our future
with a global toxic crisis,
[00:03:47.07]
would you still have put it on the house?"
[00:03:52.04]
"I hope not, honey," he said.
[00:03:55.07]
"But they didn't write that on the box."
[00:03:58.01]
[gentle music]
[00:04:08.01]
[gentle music continues]
[00:04:16.03]
[dramatic music]
[00:04:23.09]
I wanted to go to the source
of my parents' vinyl siding,
[00:04:27.03]
and since Louisiana produces about a third
[00:04:29.08]
of North America's PVC,
[00:04:31.08]
the key ingredient in all vinyl products,
[00:04:34.04]
there's a good chance
it started right here.
[00:04:38.01]
Lucky for me, I arrived in Lake Charles
[00:04:40.08]
just in time for Mardi Gras.
[00:04:44.00]
[beads rattling]
[00:04:46.01]
Oh, my parents put vinyl
siding on our house,
[00:04:51.05]
and I came to the vinyl capital of America
[00:04:54.02]
to find out all about it.
[00:04:56.08]
[lively music]
[00:05:06.08]
[lively music continues]
[00:05:16.08]
[lively music continues]
[00:05:19.07]
I brought my vinyl.
[lively music]
[00:05:24.03]
All right, that's beautiful.
[00:05:26.08]
- Oh my God.
- [Crowd] Aw!
[00:05:30.06]
[lively music]
[00:05:40.05]
[lively music continues]
[00:05:50.05]
[lively music continues]
[00:05:57.04]
- I mean, a lot of people have been saying
[00:05:58.04]
there's a whole lot of cancer in town.
[00:06:00.04]
I don't know if that's
a real connection or not
[00:06:03.03]
to all these chemicals,
[00:06:04.02]
but do you know a lot of
folks who've been sick?
[00:06:05.03]
- You hear a lot of people
that talk about cancer.
[00:06:07.02]
- They say that, but nowadays
everything gives you cancer.
[00:06:09.07]
You look on the pack of
Equal or Sweet 'N Low,
[00:06:12.00]
it's got that aspartame or whatever.
[00:06:14.03]
- They were saying mother's
milk gave you cancer.
[00:06:17.02]
- Bacon.
[00:06:18.02]
- The chemicals in the plants
here are really bad, you know,
[00:06:20.05]
'cause you think in the air,
it's probably like smoking.
[00:06:23.07]
- I have asthma real bad, so I don't know.
[00:06:25.03]
I just stay in the house.
[00:06:26.05]
Not all the time.
[00:06:27.04]
You know, we get out.
[00:06:28.06]
- Yeah.
- Look at her face,
[00:06:29.05]
- She's like, we're in a
hazardous, hazardous town.
[00:06:32.03]
- But any place that they have plants
[00:06:34.05]
or any kind of chemicals, you gonna,
[00:06:36.01]
I mean, that's just that
thing that goes along with it.
[00:06:38.08]
- You gotta realize
too, the plants do make
[00:06:40.06]
a lot of good things, you know?
[00:06:41.07]
- Yeah, they do.
- They help kids
[00:06:43.00]
and help people.
- And any time there is
[00:06:44.04]
something that is hazardous,
[00:06:45.08]
they take care of it right away,
[00:06:47.04]
I mean, you know,
[00:06:48.02]
they're good about that.
- Yeah.
[00:06:49.02]
- Now, if we ever get blown up
[00:06:50.08]
that's a different story.
- That's it.
[00:06:53.08]
[gentle music]
[00:07:03.00]
[gentle music continues]
[00:07:04.09]
- Right here, in Mossville,
across the street from my house,
[00:07:08.08]
they have by-products that are released.
[00:07:12.08]
I have not been able to prove
this, but I just believe,
[00:07:17.04]
truly believe, that I
could have gotten cancer
[00:07:22.02]
from the by-products that they release
[00:07:25.08]
when they burn their chemicals.
[00:07:28.07]
That's what I truly believe.
[00:07:30.05]
[gentle music]
[00:07:40.05]
[gentle music continues]
[00:07:41.05]
- [Judith] Let's just say
safety is a really big issue
[00:07:44.03]
in Lake Charles.
[00:07:46.06]
In fact, while I was in town,
[00:07:48.06]
the local industries held the first ever
[00:07:50.08]
community-wide risk management meeting.
[00:07:54.02]
Their goal was to reassure area residents
[00:07:57.00]
that in the event of
a worst-case scenario,
[00:07:59.06]
everything is under control.
[00:08:02.06]
- But I have here a graph,
[00:08:05.02]
which shows the concentration
at any one point
[00:08:08.02]
from a release.
[00:08:09.05]
And how that release would
go through a community.
[00:08:11.07]
- I'd like to ask you a question please.
[00:08:14.04]
During the summer we had one of the flares
[00:08:18.00]
across the street from our house
[00:08:19.05]
that let out some raw material.
[00:08:21.09]
When I say raw material,
it was falling on you
[00:08:25.00]
as you were outside, you
had to run in the house and,
[00:08:28.06]
with your hands on your
face to be able to breathe.
[00:08:33.03]
- You leave here and go up north of here
[00:08:36.09]
and you look and see how green
the trees is on both sides.
[00:08:40.04]
Here, on the south side they brown.
[00:08:44.09]
Do you think that's a
chemical that's killing them,
[00:08:47.03]
or do you think that's natural?
[00:08:50.02]
- Sometime we can give
you a tour out there
[00:08:52.04]
and let you see the control
facilities on those tanks.
[00:08:54.01]
- I worked out there
about thirty-five years
[00:08:55.07]
and five months, I don't need the tour.
[00:08:58.09]
I know what goes on.
[00:09:01.05]
I don't need your tour.
[00:09:03.07]
I'm telling you what I know.
[00:09:06.09]
[gentle music]
[00:09:11.06]
- [Judith] Maybe Mr. Hardy
didn't need a tour, but I did.
[00:09:15.09]
My father's answer to rotten wood
[00:09:18.03]
was looking more and more like
somebody else's toxic hazard.
[00:09:22.01]
And I wanted a better
idea of just what went on
[00:09:25.00]
inside a vinyl plant.
[00:09:27.08]
But when I tried to arrange a visit,
[00:09:29.08]
the public relations
officer turned me down
[00:09:32.05]
and instead referred me to the
industry's trade association,
[00:09:36.09]
the Vinyl Institute.
[00:09:40.02]
So I went to their website,
at www.vinylinfo.org.
[00:09:47.03]
Turns out it's not just the
siding on my parents' house,
[00:09:50.08]
or that stack of old record albums,
[00:09:53.01]
but from the time you wake up
till the time you go to sleep,
[00:09:56.02]
vinyl is everywhere.
[00:09:58.04]
Or as they put it, "Vinyl is
making a difference everyday."
[00:10:02.05]
[lively music]
[00:10:04.03]
[phone ringing]
[00:10:06.05]
[keyboard clicking]
[00:10:12.00]
[skis sloshing]
[character screaming]
[00:10:15.09]
[machine beeping]
[00:10:19.05]
[bell ringing]
[00:10:23.05]
[character crying]
[lively music continues]
[00:10:30.07]
The Vinyl Institute's mission statement
[00:10:32.08]
says that it was created to
protect and promote vinyl.
[00:10:38.00]
[helicopter whirring]
[gentle music]
[00:10:40.00]
But when I did a web search for PVC,
[00:10:42.04]
as vinyl is commonly known,
[00:10:44.04]
I found out it was really
about damage control.
[00:10:48.08]
Apparently, there was
a series of big fires
[00:10:51.06]
back in the '70s and early '80s,
[00:10:54.04]
including one at the MGM
Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
[00:10:59.08]
A lot of people died in that fire,
[00:11:02.00]
and it was partly the toxic
fumes from PVC products
[00:11:05.00]
that killed them.
[00:11:09.00]
Needless to say,
[00:11:10.03]
PVC got quite a bit of
bad press in those years,
[00:11:13.06]
and if there was ever a product
[00:11:14.09]
that needed a trade
association, vinyl was it.
[00:11:18.08]
[gentle music]
[00:11:20.09]
The Vinyl Institute still
spends a lot of time
[00:11:23.04]
on the defensive.
[00:11:25.09]
I actually went to one
conference exclusively devoted
[00:11:29.04]
to finding alternatives to
PVC in building construction.
[00:11:33.07]
Since the construction industry represents
[00:11:35.07]
more than 75% of the PVC market,
[00:11:38.08]
it's not surprising
that the Vinyl Institute
[00:11:41.04]
turned out in force.
[00:11:42.09]
[audience clapping]
[00:11:46.05]
- Vinyl is one material that has nearly
[00:11:49.01]
an infinite number of uses.
[00:11:51.00]
It puts low maintenance
siding on your houses.
[00:11:54.01]
It brings valuable blood
and medical products to you
[00:11:57.06]
when you and your loved ones are in need.
[00:12:00.04]
It makes soft, durable,
flexible toys available
[00:12:05.03]
for children.
[00:12:06.07]
And it's also indispensable
in food packaging as well.
[00:12:10.02]
- You look at it just like, oh my god,
[00:12:11.08]
this piece of vinyl siding, like,
[00:12:13.01]
I feel very comfortable
touching it, I've hung it,
[00:12:15.06]
I've put it on people's
houses, I really like it.
[00:12:18.01]
I think it's a really great product,
[00:12:20.00]
it uses our resources well.
[00:12:22.05]
It's 56% chlorine.
[00:12:24.07]
We have a lot of chlorine in the world.
[00:12:26.02]
We've got a lot of salt in the ocean.
[00:12:28.06]
We're not hurting the environment.
[00:12:30.03]
- If there were a better
replacement for PVC out there,
[00:12:34.00]
they'd be using it today.
[00:12:36.01]
And PVC's a good product.
[00:12:38.09]
And the whole chlorine
molecule's a good product.
[00:12:43.06]
It's saved a lot of lives.
[00:12:44.05]
- Your table salt.
- You know, it really is.
[00:12:45.09]
- Half of it is chlorine.
[00:12:48.00]
Sodium chloride.
[00:12:49.05]
NaCl.
[00:12:50.08]
If you didn't have it in
your body, you wouldn't live.
[00:12:53.04]
- It's indispensable to life.
- It's indispensable.
[00:12:55.07]
It's what gives your, you know,
[00:12:58.06]
when you tell your hand to move?
[00:13:02.07]
It's those sodium molecules inside
[00:13:06.06]
that are telling your hand to move.
[00:13:08.05]
It sends the signal.
[00:13:10.05]
So if you didn't have
it, you wouldn't be here.
[00:13:14.03]
And they try to make you
believe that it's bad.
[00:13:16.03]
- You know what, your
father doesn't have to worry
[00:13:17.08]
about his vinyl siding. [laughs]
[00:13:22.06]
I promise you, I promise.
[00:13:25.01]
It's not as bad as it was made out to be.
[00:13:28.02]
- [Judith] My father's not
worried about his vinyl siding.
[00:13:30.00]
I'm worried about his vinyl siding.
[00:13:30.09]
- Well, don't you worry about
his vinyl siding either.
[00:13:32.09]
You'll lose a lot of sleep for nothing.
[00:13:35.07]
[lively music]
[00:13:40.00]
- Now, I was really worried.
[00:13:41.09]
The Vinyl Institute representatives
wanted me to believe
[00:13:45.02]
that vinyl and table salt were
more or less the same thing.
[00:13:49.07]
Even I knew they weren't.
[00:13:51.07]
The problem was, my grasp of
basic chemistry stopped there.
[00:13:56.05]
I needed a science lesson,
[00:13:58.06]
so I invited some experts to the house.
[00:14:03.09]
[door bell ringing]
[lively music]
[00:14:07.09]
I basically brought Joe here, what?
[00:14:11.04]
- Put your hands down.
- Put my hands down?
[00:14:14.03]
Joe, Mom.
[00:14:15.02]
Mom, Joe.
- Hi Joe.
[00:14:17.00]
- It's really nice to meet you.
[00:14:18.05]
You look at a house
like this and the vinyl
[00:14:20.05]
seems perfectly harmless.
[00:14:21.07]
It's just sitting there,
in front of the house,
[00:14:24.01]
nobody's falling down with any diseases.
[00:14:27.03]
But that's if you are only
looking at the product itself.
[00:14:31.05]
If you look at its entire lifecycle,
[00:14:33.06]
from the moment it's
produced, through its use,
[00:14:36.02]
to the way it's disposed
of, vinyl turns out to be
[00:14:39.05]
the most environmentally hazardous
[00:14:41.02]
consumer product on Earth.
[00:14:44.02]
Vinyl is the source of more
persistent toxic pollutants,
[00:14:48.04]
dioxin in particular,
[00:14:49.07]
than any other single
product in the world.
[00:14:52.08]
- Dioxin is, you know, a huge topic.
[00:14:57.05]
Some people call it the
Watergate of molecules.
[00:15:00.02]
[lively music]
[00:15:04.05]
- [Judith] PVC contains more chlorine
[00:15:06.01]
than any other type of plastic,
[00:15:08.01]
and the vinyl industry
says that's a good thing.
[00:15:10.09]
They call PVC the versatile plastic.
[00:15:14.07]
- We'll start with the basics
[00:15:16.03]
and then we'll move into the details.
[00:15:19.08]
- Greenpeace calls it the Poison Plastic.
[00:15:24.01]
Granted, these guys were biased
[00:15:25.08]
in favor of saving the
planet and its inhabitants,
[00:15:29.00]
but I didn't have a problem with that.
[00:15:32.04]
Exposure to a single PVC fire
[00:15:34.05]
can cause permanent respiratory disease.
[00:15:37.09]
The International
Association of Firefighters.
[00:15:41.08]
Let's just talk about this house.
[00:15:43.09]
In its inert form on the house it's fine,
[00:15:46.03]
unless of course there was a house fire,
[00:15:48.05]
and then it would be
harmful to the neighbors.
[00:15:52.01]
- Or yourselves,
- Or certainly to ourselves.
[00:15:54.09]
- In fact, people will die
from inhaling the gases
[00:15:58.04]
long before the flames reach them.
[00:16:02.07]
- [Judith] There's no
shortage of PVC in the world,
[00:16:05.00]
and production is going up every year.
[00:16:08.01]
The problem is, it's hard to get rid of.
[00:16:10.06]
PVC is expensive and
inconvenient to recycle,
[00:16:14.00]
so most of it just ends up
in landfills or incinerators.
[00:16:17.06]
[gentle music]
[00:16:20.08]
Which brings us back to dioxin,
[00:16:22.09]
a toxic pollutant that's created
[00:16:24.09]
at both ends at the PVC lifecycle,
[00:16:27.05]
when it's manufactured and when
it's thrown away and burnt.
[00:16:32.02]
- [Rick] Dioxin causes
many types of cancer
[00:16:34.08]
and a whole range of other effects,
[00:16:36.06]
especially those that
effect the unborn infant
[00:16:40.01]
and the newly born child.
[00:16:42.02]
- And Dad, in this context, it's sort of,
[00:16:44.07]
it could act on the fetus
the way that DES acted on me.
[00:16:48.06]
- Mm-hmm.
[00:16:52.09]
- So it's not just the
people in Louisiana,
[00:16:55.05]
it's everybody in the world essentially
[00:16:57.04]
that's getting a
dangerous level of dioxin.
[00:16:59.08]
[gentle music]
[00:17:03.04]
- [Judith] My father was still skeptical.
[00:17:05.07]
Say Greenpeace to him and all he heard
[00:17:07.08]
was whale-saving radicals.
[00:17:10.07]
I had no doubts about their facts,
[00:17:12.07]
but my dad needed a second opinion.
[00:17:15.08]
So I went to talk to a scientist
[00:17:17.08]
highly regarded by both
environmentalists and industry.
[00:17:21.03]
- Hi, I'm Judith, this is my vinyl.
[00:17:22.04]
And this is your dog.
[00:17:23.07]
- Dioxin is, it's not a chemical
[00:17:26.06]
that has a purpose in itself.
[00:17:28.01]
It's an unwanted contaminant,
[00:17:30.00]
it lasts very long in the environment,
[00:17:32.05]
it lasts a long time in our bodies.
[00:17:34.03]
If you had 10 units of
exposure to dioxin today,
[00:17:38.05]
10 years from now you'd still
have 5 units of those left.
[00:17:41.09]
So, it's a compound that's toxic,
[00:17:44.07]
and it's not degraded by
us or by the environment.
[00:17:48.05]
So a little bit of dioxin
goes a long, long way.
[00:17:52.06]
- At this point, one
thing was clear to me.
[00:17:55.08]
If dioxin is getting into the atmosphere,
[00:17:58.03]
it's getting into the food chain,
[00:18:00.02]
and it's building up in our bodies.
[00:18:02.01]
[gentle music]
[cow bellowing]
[00:18:04.02]
[fish screaming]
[grass crunching]
[00:18:10.02]
[milk sloshing]
[character gulping]
[00:18:13.07]
[gentle music continues]
[00:18:22.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:18:29.02]
I couldn't speak for my father,
[00:18:31.01]
but given everything I'd learned,
[00:18:32.08]
it seemed unlikely I'd ever be able
[00:18:34.07]
to look at our neighborhood
quite the same way again.
[00:18:38.00]
[lively music]
[00:18:39.07]
- This house has aluminum,
[00:18:43.05]
which is molded to look like shakes.
[00:18:47.08]
- Right?
- But it's not.
[00:18:49.03]
- What about this?
- I don't know
[00:18:50.09]
what the house is.
- It's vinyl.
[00:18:53.07]
- It probably is, you know?
[00:18:56.00]
And I'll tell you, I can do it from here.
[00:18:58.01]
- Don't touch this house, Dad.
[00:19:00.00]
They're inside.
- I'm gonna walk over
[00:19:01.09]
and touch it.
[00:19:04.04]
Vinyl.
[gentle music]
[00:19:08.06]
Wood.
[00:19:09.05]
Aluminum.
[00:19:10.07]
- I think that's asbestos, Dad.
[00:19:12.09]
- Yes, that is.
- Don't touch it.
[00:19:14.06]
- Yeah, what about them?
[00:19:17.06]
- That's wood, that was put on last year.
[00:19:20.01]
- That's wood?
- Yeah.
[00:19:21.03]
- No.
- That's wood.
[00:19:22.09]
- My father was admiring your wood.
[00:19:25.00]
- My wood of?
- The house.
[00:19:29.06]
- It's not wood, it's vinyl.
[00:19:32.00]
- It's what?
- I think.
[00:19:33.06]
- Touch it, you'll figure it out.
[00:19:34.07]
- No, that was wood.
[00:19:35.07]
- No, no, we didn't put it up.
[00:19:37.09]
It was here when we moved in.
[00:19:41.05]
- Vinyl, Judy.
[00:19:42.07]
It looks great.
[00:19:44.06]
Flimsy, yes.
[00:19:45.05]
But looks good.
- Dad.
[00:19:47.05]
We didn't do it, it's okay.
- It's all right.
[00:19:51.02]
- Dad, this whole neighborhood's
[00:19:52.04]
gonna be a little upset with us.
[00:20:00.02]
[lively music]
[00:20:10.02]
[lively music continues]
[00:20:16.04]
Billy Baggett is a Lake Charles attorney
[00:20:18.06]
who represents vinyl chloride workers
[00:20:20.07]
with health-related claims.
[00:20:22.09]
- There's so much stuff in my car.
[00:20:25.06]
- Because he's a lawyer,
he has a legal right
[00:20:28.00]
to document his clients' workplace.
[00:20:30.04]
But he's only allowed one
plant visit per client.
[00:20:33.07]
So he tries to make the most of it.
[00:20:35.06]
- Hey Judith, could you give me a hand.
[00:20:37.05]
- Okay, so he just wanted
to get into a plant
[00:20:39.05]
and shoot where the exposed workers
[00:20:42.04]
and the sick workers had been.
[00:20:44.09]
And it wasn't enough
[00:20:45.09]
just to go in with a regular video camera.
[00:20:48.00]
- Well, yeah, because one of the reasons
[00:20:49.08]
that you do these inspections
[00:20:51.01]
is you want to be able to
go back with the worker.
[00:20:54.00]
We can move around inside the PVC plant
[00:20:57.00]
based on spatial coordinates.
[00:20:59.00]
Pretend this was just one camera.
[00:21:01.02]
If I was to do this I could
take in 360 degrees, okay?
[00:21:07.08]
Now, the way it is right
now, I don't have to do that.
[00:21:11.06]
I can just stand here
and I've got 360 degrees
[00:21:15.00]
and I can just walk, you know, like so.
[00:21:19.05]
The effect of moving through here
[00:21:20.09]
is very much like flying
through the plant.
[00:21:26.00]
This would be a pretty boring walk,
[00:21:27.08]
so it's probably better
just to walk back and forth.
[00:21:36.09]
- Do you think the people
in town have any clue
[00:21:38.07]
what went on across the lake?
[00:21:40.05]
- No, I didn't.
[water splashing]
[00:21:43.05]
[lively music]
[00:21:51.00]
- [Judith] When Billy
assembles his footage,
[00:21:53.00]
he creates a complete
panorama of the plant
[00:21:56.08]
that way his clients can show
him exactly where they worked
[00:22:00.02]
and he can see how they
might've been exposed
[00:22:02.02]
to vinyl chloride, the
building block of PVC.
[00:22:05.05]
[gentle music]
[00:22:15.05]
[gentle music continues]
[00:22:19.08]
- My husband worked with vinyl everyday.
[00:22:22.09]
When he first went to work out there,
[00:22:24.03]
he was like, they called
him a pumper loader.
[00:22:29.04]
And from that you work your way up.
[00:22:32.06]
And he was chief operator when he died.
[00:22:37.07]
I would've liked to have the
people responsible in my house
[00:22:40.09]
and watch him die one piece at a time,
[00:22:44.00]
because I remember all of it.
[00:22:46.08]
When he couldn't use
his right arm anymore,
[00:22:52.03]
when he couldn't use his left arm anymore,
[00:22:54.01]
when he couldn't use his legs,
[00:22:57.07]
and when he couldn't speak to me anymore.
[00:23:02.01]
[Elaine crying]
[00:23:12.00]
[Elaine crying continues]
[00:23:15.07]
And when I couldn't
hear his voice anymore.
[00:23:19.04]
[gentle music]
[00:23:28.08]
I could never say that they knew anything,
[00:23:32.03]
I could only say that there
was one document that we had
[00:23:36.04]
that had hand-written on it
across the side of the paper
[00:23:39.09]
"Exceeds short-term exposure,
[00:23:41.04]
do not include on wire to Houston."
[00:23:44.03]
And I wondered why.
[00:23:46.04]
I took that to Billy.
[00:23:49.06]
- This is what started
the ball rolling, I mean.
[00:23:53.00]
- For me it was.
- Well, it substantiated,
[00:23:56.01]
it sure raised a doubt in
my mind, I'll say that.
[00:23:58.08]
When you get something
that has this inexplicable
[00:24:03.04]
little comment "Do not
include on wire to Houston."
[00:24:07.01]
That did excite our attention.
[00:24:09.07]
[lively music]
[00:24:11.07]
- [Judith] Two little lines,
[00:24:13.03]
"Exceeds short-term exposure,"
[00:24:15.03]
and "Do not include on wire to Houston."
[00:24:18.06]
Billy didn't know what that meant
[00:24:20.02]
but it made him suspicious.
[00:24:22.04]
So he subpoenaed that company,
[00:24:24.05]
and in addition to the 32
boxes of documents he got back,
[00:24:28.00]
was a copy of that report
with the two little lines.
[00:24:31.07]
Only now, they were whited out.
[00:24:35.07]
So there were more subpoenas
and more documents,
[00:24:39.03]
millions of pages of documents,
[00:24:41.08]
and that little bit of white-out
[00:24:43.03]
started to look like
a really big cover-up.
[00:24:49.08]
- A case like this doesn't come along
[00:24:51.06]
to most lawyers very often.
[00:24:54.05]
Maybe once in a lifetime,
once every hundred lifetimes,
[00:24:58.05]
where you really have
the opportunity, maybe,
[00:25:00.09]
to do something that
can make a difference.
[00:25:05.03]
I might be making more money
out working benzene cases.
[00:25:09.05]
I might be doing better
in auto accident cases.
[00:25:15.04]
As it is, I feel like I
have some sort of secret,
[00:25:19.09]
hermetic knowledge.
[00:25:25.05]
Here is my original,
they call it manifesto,
[00:25:29.04]
now you know that that's
somebody naming it beside me,
[00:25:32.08]
because I would never have
called it a manifesto.
[00:25:34.05]
- [Judith] What would you call it?
[00:25:35.05]
- I don't know what I would've called it.
[00:25:36.07]
I would've called it
plaintiff's first disclosure
[00:25:39.05]
of facts supporting a plaintiff's
conspiracy allegations.
[00:25:44.03]
- Against?
- In fact,
[00:25:45.01]
that is what I called it.
[00:25:46.03]
I called it, "Plaintiff's
disclosure of claims
[00:25:48.05]
relevant to plaintiff's
conspiracy claims."
[00:25:50.07]
- [Judith] Conspiracy claims about?
[00:25:52.08]
- Vinyl chloride.
[00:25:55.08]
These are documents that are-
[00:25:56.08]
- [Judith] Billy has come to believe
[00:25:58.04]
that the international vinyl industry
[00:26:00.09]
knew their employees might get
cancer just by coming to work
[00:26:04.09]
and that they acted
together to hide the truth.
[00:26:08.01]
Now, every time he represents
an individual client
[00:26:11.06]
with a PVC-related claim,
[00:26:14.01]
he attaches the conspiracy allegations,
[00:26:17.00]
which means that 32
separate PVC manufacturers
[00:26:20.07]
are implicated in each and every suit.
[00:26:24.03]
- Let's just start here.
[00:26:25.09]
Here is where it is.
[00:26:26.08]
- [Markowitz] If it had not
been for Billy's persistence
[00:26:30.00]
in getting these documents from industry,
[00:26:33.02]
the story of vinyl would
never have been told.
[00:26:37.05]
- [Judith] This is where David Rosner
[00:26:38.09]
and Jerry Markowitz came in.
[00:26:40.09]
PhD's in the history of workplace
toxins, writing partners,
[00:26:45.03]
former brothers-in-law.
[00:26:47.08]
They were hired by a law firm
[00:26:49.05]
that was interested in
joining Billy's case,
[00:26:51.08]
but wanted first make sure
his allegations weren't crazy.
[00:26:56.07]
So when you read these documents,
what were you thinking?
[00:27:04.00]
- This seems to be criminal activity,
[00:27:06.00]
this seems to be putting
a lot of people at risk,
[00:27:08.01]
and this seems to be
extraordinarily immoral.
[00:27:13.05]
So, we kind of kept looking at each other,
[00:27:15.09]
"Did you see this?
[00:27:18.04]
They couldn't have done that."
[00:27:20.02]
And then we found
confirmation that they did.
[00:27:22.07]
[gentle music]
[00:27:24.07]
- [Judith] Billy's archive is
the most extensive collection
[00:27:27.02]
of internal chemical
industry documents anywhere,
[00:27:30.06]
and it attracts a lot of visitors.
[00:27:33.03]
There have been investigative
journalists, other lawyers,
[00:27:36.07]
even an officer from the
high court in Venice, Italy.
[00:27:40.01]
He showed up with an
Italian epidemiologist,
[00:27:43.02]
a US Marshall, and a subpoena.
[00:27:45.09]
Spent a solid week Xeroxing,
[00:27:48.04]
then turned around and went
straight back to Venice.
[00:27:51.03]
[gentle music]
[00:27:54.08]
[water sloshing]
[lively music]
[00:28:03.08]
[lively music continues]
[00:28:13.08]
[lively music continues]
[00:28:22.09]
Vinyl is not exactly the
first thing that leaps to mind
[00:28:25.08]
when most people think of Venice,
[00:28:28.06]
but Billy's documents led me straight
[00:28:30.05]
to one of the largest PVC
manufacturers in Europe,
[00:28:33.09]
the EniChem Corporation.
[00:28:35.09]
And to a group of former
workers and widows
[00:28:38.01]
just like Dan and Elaine
Ross in Louisiana.
[00:28:40.07]
[lively music]
[00:28:46.03]
[people speaking Italian]
[00:28:58.04]
[Ersilia speaking Italian]
[00:29:08.03]
[Ersilia speaking Italian continues]
[00:29:17.09]
- [Translator] With the other workers.
[00:29:19.01]
[Ersilia speaking Italian]
[00:29:21.05]
- [Translator] This was the ceremony.
[00:29:22.09]
[Ersilia speaking Italian]
[00:29:29.08]
- Did he know he was sick then?
[00:29:32.00]
[Translator speaking Italian]
- No.
[00:29:34.04]
- They don't know, at that moment
[00:29:36.01]
they don't know that he was sick.
[00:29:37.03]
- No, no.
[00:29:39.06]
[speaking Italian]
[00:29:49.06]
[speaking Italian continues]
[00:29:59.06]
[speaking Italian continues]
[00:30:04.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian]
[00:30:14.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:30:24.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:30:34.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:30:46.01]
[Ampelio speaking Italian]
[00:30:56.00]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:31:06.01]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:31:16.01]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[00:31:25.00]
[lively music]
[00:31:29.06]
- [Judith] Ampelio worked
in a vinyl chloride plant
[00:31:31.04]
in the 1970's.
[00:31:34.05]
Around the same time, in a
laboratory 30 miles away,
[00:31:38.02]
Dr. Cesare Maltoni was conducting
[00:31:40.05]
an industry-sponsored study
[00:31:42.03]
to determine the effects
of vinyl chloride exposure
[00:31:45.01]
on lab animals.
[00:31:47.07]
I got to spend some time with Dr. Maltoni,
[00:31:50.02]
and he went out of his way
[00:31:51.05]
to make sure I got the story straight.
[00:31:54.03]
So were you doing this research
[00:31:55.09]
before the chemical companies
hired you to do the research,
[00:32:00.01]
and they came to you and said,
"Okay, now we'll fund you?"
[00:32:02.00]
- If you want I tell that,
[00:32:02.08]
you must say to me what story you want.
[00:32:04.09]
- [Judith] Oh, are they different stories?
[00:32:06.00]
- I have to start from the beginning
[00:32:07.03]
because the story doesn't go anymore.
[00:32:09.03]
- It doesn't?
- No.
[00:32:10.04]
- [Judith] They're two different stories,
[00:32:11.05]
but you were doing this research first?
[00:32:12.06]
- You would like why I started exactly?
[00:32:15.04]
- Ah.
- Or not?
[00:32:16.08]
What do you want?
[00:32:17.07]
What story do you want I tell you?
[00:32:19.04]
- Okay.
- But we have to,
[00:32:20.06]
because they're filming.
[00:32:21.04]
I am unhappy now to leave
piece of film I cannot control.
[00:32:25.08]
I like to say to the
story all consequence.
[00:32:28.07]
- Okay, you mean one piece,
each piece at a time.
[00:32:31.01]
- Yes.
- Okay.
[00:32:32.06]
As long as you just
can help me understand.
[00:32:35.06]
- So you may ask to me directly,
[00:32:38.01]
"Why did you started your
vinyl chloride research?"
[00:32:41.02]
And I answer why I start.
- Okay.
[00:32:44.07]
- Why and when I started it.
[00:32:46.08]
And then you may stop me to say,
[00:32:48.06]
"Why the lesson of vinyl
chloride was important?"
[00:32:51.04]
And then I will tell you
why it was important.
[00:32:53.05]
"What message does this lesson convey?"
[00:32:56.04]
And I tell you the message
this lesson convey.
[00:32:58.01]
- Those are four good questions.
[00:32:59.00]
- So if you say me, this
thing, I'll tell you the story.
[00:33:01.07]
[lively music]
[00:33:04.08]
- They are all there.
[00:33:06.06]
All there are vinyl chloride.
[00:33:09.03]
But you know, here we have the autopsies
[00:33:11.08]
on more than two hundred
fifty thousand animals.
[00:33:16.01]
So it is quite an arsenal of blocks.
[00:33:22.00]
- [Judith] So all the
tumors are in these boxes.
[00:33:28.07]
- In autumn of 1972,
[00:33:31.02]
we were aware already that vinyl chloride,
[00:33:36.01]
at least at the high dose,
[00:33:37.02]
was producing different types of tumor.
[00:33:40.04]
And at that time, three type of tumor
[00:33:42.07]
in the first exposed animal
which was laboratory rats.
[00:33:47.07]
Tumor of ear, tumor of kidney,
[00:33:51.03]
and a very, very rare type
of tumor, angiosarcoma.
[00:33:55.08]
Angiosarcoma of liver.
[00:33:57.03]
[lively music]
[00:34:01.00]
- [Judith] The rats got cancerous tumors
[00:34:02.09]
from vinyl chloride exposures
[00:34:04.09]
as low as 250 parts per million.
[00:34:08.08]
Meanwhile, in Italy and the US,
[00:34:11.03]
it was legal for vinyl chloride workers
[00:34:13.07]
to be exposed to as much
as twice that amount.
[00:34:19.05]
The European vinyl
industry was not too happy
[00:34:22.01]
with Dr. Maltoni's results,
[00:34:24.00]
and they decided to keep
his research, secret.
[00:34:27.03]
[lively music]
[00:34:35.00]
In 1972, the European vinyl industry
[00:34:38.04]
agreed to share Maltoni's results
[00:34:40.03]
with their US counterparts,
[00:34:42.02]
on the condition that
the Americans first sign
[00:34:44.06]
a formal secrecy agreement
[00:34:46.04]
swearing not to reveal the dangers
[00:34:48.00]
of vinyl chloride exposure to anyone.
[00:34:51.06]
- What they're actually signing
[00:34:52.08]
was a document to keep
information private,
[00:34:56.06]
and to keep information
about disease private.
[00:34:58.09]
- [Judith] It was the Americans' idea
[00:35:00.00]
to have the secrecy agreement?
[00:35:00.08]
- [Both] No, it was the Europeans.
[00:35:02.06]
- Idea to have a secrecy agreement,
[00:35:05.04]
but the Americans agreed to it.
[00:35:06.09]
- They were essentially
conspiring among each other
[00:35:09.06]
not to tell about something
[00:35:11.09]
that they all know is a problem.
[00:35:15.01]
And they do it for,
because they're a club.
[00:35:18.05]
Because they're an industry that sees
[00:35:22.00]
their own self-interest
as being more important
[00:35:24.01]
than the public interest.
[00:35:25.03]
[lively music]
[00:35:33.07]
- Hundreds and hundreds of
pounds of vinyl chloride
[00:35:36.00]
would be released just
in the normal course
[00:35:38.02]
of loading operations, with no
precautions taken whatsoever,
[00:35:42.08]
no signs.
[00:35:44.04]
It is your nightmare scenario
of a concealed toxic hazard.
[00:35:51.05]
The industry needed to buy time for vinyl.
[00:35:56.07]
Vinyl was a new product then.
[00:35:59.03]
Bad news from Italy, if
not properly handled,
[00:36:03.00]
could've potentially made
people think twice about
[00:36:07.01]
turning everything into plastic.
[00:36:09.07]
[lively music]
[00:36:10.09]
Meanwhile, women may have
been spraying their hair
[00:36:14.01]
with vinyl chloride.
[lively music]
[00:36:19.01]
As early as 1969, some of
the manufacturers recognized
[00:36:23.09]
that women using hairspray
on a regular basis
[00:36:27.08]
were exposed at levels higher
[00:36:30.04]
than your average industrial worker.
[00:36:35.04]
The industry was aware
[00:36:37.09]
of the unlimited potential liability.
[00:36:44.00]
- [Judith] If millions of women,
[00:36:45.03]
not to mention their hairdressers,
[00:36:47.02]
had known that the propellant
in hairspray was carcinogenic,
[00:36:50.08]
they would have put the
vinyl chloride industry
[00:36:52.05]
out of business.
[00:36:55.01]
So, the industry kept that a secret too.
[00:36:57.06]
[lively music]
[00:37:01.08]
But then something happened
that they couldn't really hide.
[00:37:05.05]
Between 1968 and 1974,
[00:37:08.05]
four workers in one vinyl chloride plant
[00:37:10.08]
in Louisville, Kentucky
[00:37:12.03]
all died of angiosarcoma of the liver,
[00:37:15.08]
the same extremely rare cancer
that Dr. Maltoni had found
[00:37:19.04]
in his lab rats.
[00:37:23.03]
The industry was finally forced to admit
[00:37:25.07]
that there was a direct link
[00:37:27.00]
between vinyl chloride
exposure and cancer.
[00:37:32.05]
In response, the chemical
workers unions demanded
[00:37:35.08]
that the government drastically
reduce exposure levels,
[00:37:39.04]
and a limit was finally set
at one part per million.
[00:37:44.06]
As for the millions of women
[00:37:46.00]
who were being exposed every
time they did their hair,
[00:37:49.04]
industry never made any
public announcement.
[00:37:52.01]
They just quietly took the
vinyl chloride out of hairspray.
[00:37:57.04]
There's no way of knowing
[00:37:58.05]
how many people might've gotten sick.
[00:38:03.00]
- If you asked any trade association
[00:38:06.00]
involved with vinyl chloride today
[00:38:08.02]
what the risks of angiosarcoma are,
[00:38:10.08]
you're going to be told
that it's the result of
[00:38:14.08]
excessive exposures years ago, far away,
[00:38:18.06]
that have nothing to do
with today's population.
[00:38:21.03]
That workers who entered,
this is like gospel,
[00:38:26.01]
workers who entered the
workforce after 1974,
[00:38:30.01]
when the new laws went into effect?
[00:38:32.00]
Oh, none of those guys
have gotten angiosarcoma.
[00:38:34.09]
[lively music]
[00:38:38.03]
- [Judith] To this point,
[00:38:39.05]
the only vinyl workers
I knew anything about
[00:38:41.06]
were resin workers, the ones
who convert raw vinyl chloride,
[00:38:45.02]
a gas, into polyvinyl chloride, or PVC.
[00:38:48.06]
[lively music]
[00:38:51.01]
The industry insists that
this is the only time
[00:38:53.09]
in the PVC manufacturing process
[00:38:56.03]
when there is any risk of
vinyl chloride exposure,
[00:39:00.07]
so most of the health studies
[00:39:02.06]
have focused on the resin workers.
[00:39:04.06]
[lively music]
[00:39:07.05]
Once the vinyl chloride gas is converted
[00:39:09.09]
into these PVC pellets,
fabricators take over.
[00:39:15.04]
Their job is to turn the
pellets into consumer products.
[00:39:18.06]
[lively music]
[00:39:20.08]
In the process, the pellets
usually get heated up,
[00:39:23.09]
and small amounts of vinyl chloride
[00:39:25.07]
can sometimes be released.
[00:39:27.03]
[lively music]
[00:39:31.07]
But the industry still maintains
[00:39:33.04]
that fabricators are at no risk.
[00:39:36.07]
The thing is, there are
many more fabricators
[00:39:39.02]
than resin workers,
literally millions worldwide,
[00:39:42.09]
and some studies have suggested
[00:39:45.01]
that they may have an increased risk
[00:39:46.08]
for certain cancers and other diseases.
[00:39:50.01]
But the vinyl industry maintains
[00:39:51.09]
that they know of no cases
[00:39:53.04]
of vinyl chloride-related
angiosarcoma in fabricators,
[00:39:57.04]
so there's no need to study them further.
[00:40:01.08]
I would've liked to believe that.
[00:40:03.05]
A fabricator somewhere
made our vinyl siding.
[00:40:06.09]
But then I heard about Michael Wayne Cox,
[00:40:09.01]
who started working as
a fabricator in 1978,
[00:40:12.09]
4 years after the government
drastically reduced
[00:40:15.05]
exposure limits to vinyl chloride.
[00:40:18.09]
He was diagnosed with
angiosarcoma of the liver in 1986,
[00:40:23.02]
right before he died.
[00:40:25.00]
He was 30.
[lively music]
[00:40:28.04]
Later, his wife filed suit.
[00:40:30.08]
And though the industry paid
her a generous settlement,
[00:40:33.09]
they assured her that since
Michael was a fabricator
[00:40:36.09]
and therefore at no risk
for vinyl chloride exposure,
[00:40:40.02]
his angiosarcoma must have
been caused by something else.
[00:40:44.04]
[lively music]
[00:40:52.02]
Dr. Paul Brandt-Rauf has
a very different opinion
[00:40:55.00]
about the health risks for PVC workers
[00:40:57.03]
like Michael Wayne Cox.
[00:40:59.04]
He's conducting gene studies
[00:41:01.03]
on people working at the
current maximum exposure levels
[00:41:04.06]
and below.
[00:41:05.07]
And he's found mutations that suggest
[00:41:08.00]
what the vinyl industry
considers safe just might not be.
[00:41:13.05]
- Can you see that right there?
[00:41:15.01]
- Yeah.
- What this is,
[00:41:17.01]
is blood samples from
vinyl chloride workers.
[00:41:19.08]
Here's a worker who has
this particular band,
[00:41:22.01]
which corresponds to the same molecule
[00:41:24.01]
that we see inside this tumor.
[00:41:26.04]
So, our suspicion is that
if you have these mutations,
[00:41:29.04]
you have a much higher risk
of going on to get tumors.
[00:41:33.03]
So therefore, it is worrisome
[00:41:34.08]
that individuals exposed below
the current exposure limit
[00:41:37.02]
have evidence of these
mutations in their body.
[00:41:39.07]
- [Judith] But these workers
don't have tumors yet, right?
[00:41:42.04]
- [Paul] That's right.
[00:41:43.05]
[gentle music]
[00:41:46.06]
This study started over 17 years ago,
[00:41:48.05]
but the results are clear.
[00:41:50.03]
While they appear healthy,
[00:41:51.05]
workers who were exposed
after 1974 have mutations
[00:41:54.06]
that are identical to the
mutations we would find
[00:41:56.03]
if they did develop
angiosarcoma of the liver.
[00:41:59.06]
Based on our research,
[00:42:00.06]
it seems to me there's a need for a study
[00:42:02.01]
of all PVC workers working
at the current exposures
[00:42:05.01]
and a reexamination
[00:42:06.02]
of the one part per million safety limit.
[00:42:10.08]
- [Judith] So can you just tell me,
[00:42:12.08]
when is vinyl chloride safe?
[00:42:16.04]
- There is no safe level.
[00:42:17.03]
- [Judith] Can you talk
about that a little?
[00:42:18.08]
- There is no zero risk level.
[00:42:21.03]
The only zero risk level
is zero exposure, okay?
[00:42:24.01]
And you're never going to
get down to zero exposure
[00:42:26.00]
if you're going to be
making vinyl chloride.
[00:42:27.06]
There is always going to be some
[00:42:28.05]
residual exposure somewhere,
[00:42:30.00]
even if it's parts per trillions
or parts per quadrillion,
[00:42:32.02]
which we can measure nowadays.
[00:42:33.03]
I mean, we can measure
vanishingly small numbers.
[00:42:35.04]
But for every molecule of
vinyl chloride present,
[00:42:37.05]
there is some residual risk
[00:42:38.04]
that that molecule will
get into somebody's body
[00:42:40.04]
and cause a cancer.
[00:42:41.09]
So, if you've got a molecule
present, you've got a risk.
[00:42:45.07]
[gentle music]
[00:42:54.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:43:04.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:43:14.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:43:17.03]
- As a kid, I have to admit that I thought
[00:43:21.01]
that the plants were beautiful.
[00:43:24.04]
I guess it would be, you know,
in the eye of the beholder,
[00:43:27.07]
but, I mean, I think that they
[00:43:29.09]
definitely look better at night.
[00:43:31.01]
I mean, look at that,
that's just beautiful.
[00:43:35.01]
We would be driving back a
lot of times late at night,
[00:43:37.06]
and I'd always know that
when I saw that torch
[00:43:39.07]
that we were getting close to home.
[00:43:43.06]
It reminded me of the way
the Emerald City looked
[00:43:47.04]
in the Wizard of Oz, which
used to come on every year.
[00:43:51.09]
And there would be this scene
[00:43:53.00]
right before they crossed
the field of poppies,
[00:43:55.07]
you'd see this glistening
[00:43:57.08]
sort of Jetsons-looking
future sort of city.
[00:44:04.09]
I mean, what can I say?
[00:44:05.08]
That I'm deliberately
putting my kids at risk
[00:44:08.05]
by living in this community?
[00:44:12.02]
I don't have any reason to think
[00:44:13.08]
that we're not gonna pay the price,
[00:44:18.00]
but I gotta admit that I don't give,
[00:44:22.04]
I don't sit awake nights
thinking about moving to Aspen.
[00:44:34.00]
- [Announcer] This is a
test of the Lake Charles
[00:44:36.06]
Public Emergency warning system.
[00:44:39.05]
This is only a test.
[00:44:44.03]
[alarm blaring]
[lively music]
[00:44:50.07]
- [Judith] If there's a
big industrial explosion
[00:44:52.07]
or a toxic spill, and
people nearby get sick,
[00:44:56.02]
it's usually not hard to identify
[00:44:58.00]
what they've been exposed
to, or who's at fault.
[00:45:02.07]
But with the day-to-day chemical releases,
[00:45:05.02]
it takes a little more
ingenuity to connect the dots.
[00:45:08.03]
[alarm blaring]
[lively music]
[00:45:20.01]
- All we want to know
is what we're breathing,
[00:45:22.02]
what the hell's in the air.
[00:45:23.05]
So we developed these buckets.
[00:45:26.06]
- Sniffers are a very important
part of the Bucket Brigade,
[00:45:29.09]
because what they are is
the early warning system.
[00:45:32.09]
You need a lot of those spread
throughout the neighborhood.
[00:45:36.03]
- Aren't you right close
to the railroad tracks?
[00:45:38.05]
- Yes.
- Now, do I set
[00:45:39.09]
the bucket on the ground
[00:45:41.01]
or do I hold it up in the air or what?
[00:45:44.03]
[buckets banging]
[00:45:47.01]
- There you go, what do
you think about that?
[00:45:50.01]
[lively music]
[00:46:00.00]
[lively music continues]
[doors thuds]
[00:46:10.03]
[lively music continues]
[00:46:15.03]
- Oh man, nice.
[00:46:16.04]
That's fat bags of air.
[00:46:18.05]
- That's your lung right there, okay?
[00:46:21.06]
- Hey, hey.
[00:46:23.06]
Y'all need to leave,
y'all on private property,
[00:46:25.02]
y'all should go.
[00:46:26.02]
- This isn't private property, sir.
[00:46:28.04]
Across there, over the
fenceline, is private property.
[00:46:31.01]
[lively music]
[00:46:36.07]
- I think you need to
get somebody out here.
[00:46:38.06]
- We're just taking an air sample.
[00:46:40.00]
There's so wrong with that.
[00:46:41.05]
- I got about three.
- 10-4.
[00:46:44.04]
[lively music]
[00:46:47.02]
- Oh yeah, we got it.
[lively music]
[00:46:57.02]
[lively music continues]
[00:47:01.03]
- This is the perfect size
for your bag, Mrs. Prince.
[00:47:04.04]
Exactly 3 minutes.
[00:47:05.03]
- Wonderful, let me put it in there.
[00:47:06.07]
- [Judith] For weeks on end,
[00:47:07.07]
the Bucket Brigades collected
air samples all over town.
[00:47:11.06]
Of course, I was most
interested in the one
[00:47:13.08]
taken across from the
vinyl chloride plant.
[00:47:16.04]
- Put it in the box, all right,
[00:47:18.09]
it fits in there just perfect.
[00:47:20.07]
- Yeah.
[00:47:21.06]
- When you come through
security screening,
[00:47:23.09]
you should always be able to
show me what's in the package.
[00:47:27.07]
- That's it.
- Okay.
[00:47:32.08]
- Thank you.
- You're welcome, thank you.
[00:47:34.07]
[lively music]
[00:47:43.06]
So, I signed a custody agreement
with the local activists,
[00:47:47.05]
swearing I wouldn't tamper with the air,
[00:47:50.00]
and personally escorted one bag
[00:47:52.03]
to a lab in Burbank,
California for analysis.
[00:48:01.06]
I brought the results
to chemist Wilma Subra,
[00:48:04.03]
1999 winner of the McArthur Genius Award.
[00:48:07.09]
She works out of a trailer
in New Iberia, Louisiana,
[00:48:11.01]
and spends a lot of her time
interpreting this kind of data
[00:48:14.04]
for community groups all over the state.
[00:48:17.01]
I know that at the lab,
[00:48:18.00]
they said that this was a
huge amount of chloride.
[00:48:18.08]
- Right, vinyl chloride, yes, yes.
[00:48:22.02]
In the air, in the community, that is.
[00:48:24.03]
It's 10 times the ambient air quality.
[00:48:26.08]
It is a huge amount.
[00:48:28.00]
It's getting into the air
[00:48:29.04]
that was collected from
these peoples' yards.
[00:48:31.05]
- So the production of the raw vinyl,
[00:48:34.01]
at the CondeaVista vinyl
plant is not contained.
[00:48:37.06]
- Correct, it's moving
off-site into the community
[00:48:41.03]
where people live.
[00:48:43.03]
And that air has vinyl chloride in it.
[00:48:47.04]
And a large number of
other chemicals as well.
[00:48:53.07]
[engine whirring]
[00:49:02.08]
- [Laura] Shoot, sediment
and water contact.
[00:49:05.07]
- [Beth] You should call that
number right now, 478-6020
[00:49:08.06]
- [Judith] I'll give you
the phone, you can call.
[00:49:10.04]
- Water contact?
[00:49:11.03]
I thought it was just fish consumption.
[00:49:13.01]
- Who am I speaking with?
[00:49:15.06]
No, I'm at Bayou d'Inde right now,
[00:49:16.08]
and I just saw the sign
about water contamination
[00:49:20.09]
and sediment contamination.
[00:49:23.06]
So contact with the water
itself is dangerous?
[00:49:29.03]
Yes.
[00:49:32.00]
Okay, so I'm curious as
to what it will do to you
[00:49:34.09]
if you do have contact with the water.
[00:49:38.09]
- [Beth] And why there's
only one bent sign.
[00:49:42.04]
- Oh.
[00:49:45.01]
I called the wrong number.
[00:49:47.02]
Okay, well, I'm on a boat at Bayou d'Inde.
[00:49:50.07]
I'm on a boat.
[00:49:52.01]
Who are you going to connect me with?
[00:49:55.02]
Kathleen, I'm out at Bayou d'Inde
[00:49:57.00]
and it says water and
sediment contamination.
[00:50:00.00]
Does that mean that contact
with the water is dangerous?
[00:50:03.04]
You think it means don't eat the fish,
[00:50:05.01]
'cause there are fishermen
fishing in the area.
[00:50:09.07]
You say don't catch the fish.
[00:50:11.05]
What about the fish that
swim in and eat the sediment
[00:50:13.08]
and then swim out into the lakes?
[00:50:15.03]
So, all of this estuary
is polluted pretty much,
[00:50:17.08]
you shouldn't eat the-
[00:50:20.04]
Who are you going to connect me with?
[00:50:22.03]
[gentle music]
[00:50:32.04]
- [Judith] Water contamination
isn't just a problem
[00:50:34.08]
for swimmers and fishermen.
[00:50:37.03]
A long-term leak from
one vinyl chloride plant
[00:50:40.05]
actually poisoned the
groundwater in Mossville,
[00:50:43.05]
making it the latest of several
African-American communities
[00:50:47.01]
to be forced out by
chemical contamination.
[00:50:51.07]
Some families, like the Fuscelays,
[00:50:54.00]
decided to take their houses with them.
[00:50:56.03]
[engine whirring]
[00:51:00.01]
The plant offered to
buy the residents out.
[00:51:02.08]
In exchange, they had to sign an agreement
[00:51:05.00]
promising that if they ever
developed health problems
[00:51:07.07]
linked to groundwater contamination,
[00:51:09.08]
they would not file suit
against the company.
[00:51:12.09]
[gentle music]
[00:51:22.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:51:32.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:51:42.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:51:52.08]
[gentle music continues]
[00:51:57.06]
- Just put it in the middle.
[00:51:59.08]
Just put it in the middle.
[00:52:01.06]
That'll be good enough.
[00:52:08.00]
- [Judith] For my
parents, the vinyl siding
[00:52:10.00]
was all about affordability
and convenience.
[00:52:14.00]
They didn't know anything
about contaminated groundwater
[00:52:17.00]
or fabricators or angiosarcoma.
[00:52:20.07]
Like my father said, none of
that was written on the box.
[00:52:25.01]
And to be fair, the box was
all my parents had to go on.
[00:52:32.03]
Back home in Merrick,
[00:52:33.04]
most of the dangers of
vinyl are hard to see
[00:52:36.01]
and easy to ignore.
[00:52:38.08]
But there's an old Yiddish saying,
[00:52:40.06]
"If your neighbor's house is
on fire, you're also not safe."
[00:52:45.09]
In other words, if Lake
Charles and Mossville
[00:52:48.08]
are in trouble, so are we.
[00:52:51.08]
[gentle music]
[00:52:56.04]
What if we found an
alternative to the vinyl?
[00:53:01.05]
This is hypothetical.
[00:53:03.00]
If we found an alternative
[00:53:04.04]
that had less risks associated with it
[00:53:06.09]
than PVC vinyl siding, which
is on the outside of our house,
[00:53:09.05]
we could take the vinyl off
and we could make a point,
[00:53:13.07]
one family could make one point,
[00:53:15.05]
even if it was somewhat
symbolic, us, make a point
[00:53:18.06]
that a company, that, not just companies,
[00:53:22.03]
but consumers and companies together
[00:53:24.07]
have to be responsible for the
whole lifecycle of a product.
[00:53:28.07]
Because if this burns,
it's bad for you know,
[00:53:30.05]
it's bad for Bayview Avenue.
[00:53:32.06]
- Well, Judy is trying to indicate
[00:53:34.08]
is not the final product.
[00:53:38.02]
The final vinyl product
may be safe indeed.
[00:53:41.03]
- No, Dad.
- But the process
[00:53:44.05]
to produce that product may not be safe.
[00:53:50.05]
- Judy is saying the disposal
of the vinyl products
[00:53:54.07]
is what's causing all these problems.
[00:53:57.02]
Both, both.
[00:53:59.06]
- The production and the disposal.
[00:54:01.01]
- Right.
[00:54:02.04]
But you didn't really know that
[00:54:03.07]
when you put it on the
outside of the house.
[00:54:05.02]
- No, I didn't.
[00:54:06.04]
- And if you had?
[00:54:07.06]
- I might've still overlooked it.
[00:54:09.05]
- Why?
- Because the vinyl
[00:54:12.08]
resists denting.
[00:54:16.02]
It has various advantages.
[00:54:19.08]
- So you're still happy with it?
[00:54:21.03]
- Yes.
- Even after
[00:54:23.00]
you've been hearing me
talk about this off and on
[00:54:25.01]
for the last three years.
[00:54:26.04]
- Because I still think
that the final product.
[00:54:29.09]
- Dad.
- If the siding
[00:54:31.05]
- Yeah.
- Vinyl siding.
[00:54:32.09]
- Yeah.
- That's on our home.
[00:54:33.08]
- Right?
- Were removed
[00:54:35.05]
- Right.
- A substitute material
[00:54:37.06]
was installed at no cost.
[00:54:39.06]
- To you?
- At no cost to me.
[00:54:42.00]
- Okay.
[00:54:44.05]
- What would happen to that vinyl siding
[00:54:47.07]
that has been removed?
[00:54:49.04]
How would you dispose of that?
[00:54:50.06]
- Well, that's a really good question
[00:54:52.04]
and I've been thinking about it.
[00:54:54.03]
What we've been thinking about actually-
[00:54:56.04]
- Truth was, I hadn't
figured that out yet.
[00:54:59.05]
I had already called
every East Coast facility
[00:55:01.08]
on the Vinyl Institute's list
of official PVC recyclers.
[00:55:06.00]
But most said our used
siding was more trouble
[00:55:08.05]
than it was worth.
[00:55:10.01]
If we could find an alternative
[00:55:12.04]
that has less risk associated with it
[00:55:15.03]
than polyvinyl chloride,
[00:55:18.05]
and we will go out of our way to make sure
[00:55:21.05]
that the vinyl that we take off the house
[00:55:23.02]
does not get burnt, we
could sell the house,
[00:55:25.09]
and you wouldn't even have
to talk about the vinyl
[00:55:28.02]
with any of your prospective buyers.
[00:55:30.00]
- We don't talk about it.
[00:55:31.03]
They see it, so you don't talk about it.
[00:55:32.06]
- But you haven't put it on
the market yet, have you?
[00:55:35.03]
- No, not yet.
[00:55:37.02]
- We could put it on,
we would take this off.
[00:55:40.05]
It would be cutting edge, Dad.
[00:55:42.03]
- Sure.
[00:55:43.08]
Maybe it is in California.
[00:55:47.07]
- Maybe in California.
[00:55:50.03]
[lively music]
[00:55:57.09]
I know she didn't mean to,
[00:55:59.06]
but my mother had sent me
to one of the only places
[00:56:02.04]
in the country where my obsession
[00:56:04.03]
with non-toxic building materials
actually blended right in.
[00:56:08.04]
[lively music]
[00:56:16.08]
- What's that?
- Hemp.
[00:56:18.05]
- Hemp?
[00:56:20.03]
- You're not surprised to
find hemp out here, are you?
[00:56:22.07]
- No, what happens if it burns?
[00:56:25.02]
It's great for the whole community.
[00:56:26.09]
- There you go, people will be happy.
[00:56:29.06]
- HardiBoard.
- Stucco.
[00:56:31.05]
- His whole house is clay?
- Yeah.
[00:56:33.03]
- Have you heard of rammed earth?
[00:56:35.01]
- No.
- They use either foam core
[00:56:37.07]
or raw straw blocks, they
call it, ten-inch blocks.
[00:56:41.01]
And they shoot earth,
[00:56:42.03]
three inches worth of earth
on the exterior for siding.
[00:56:45.05]
You've never heard of that?
[00:56:47.07]
- Could we do that in Long Island?
[00:56:50.00]
- I don't know.
[lively music]
[00:57:00.03]
[lively music continues]
[00:57:10.03]
[lively music continues]
[00:57:20.03]
[lively music continues]
[00:57:26.05]
- I was told this was
gonna be a straw house.
[00:57:28.05]
- Well, yeah.
[00:57:29.07]
But we gotta protect it somehow.
[00:57:32.03]
This is straw inside of
here, it's like a stucco,
[00:57:36.02]
this is an earthen plaster,
[00:57:37.05]
a little bit of cement,
some lime that's hardened,
[00:57:40.08]
lots of sand, and then natural pigments
[00:57:43.06]
that make the exterior color go on here.
[00:57:46.04]
And behind this is straw.
[00:57:49.02]
- Well, this is a long
way from my problem.
[00:57:52.09]
My father.
[00:57:54.07]
- Ooh, this is what your
parents just resided their?
[00:57:57.04]
- Well, not just, about five years ago.
[00:57:59.09]
- Do you visit him?
- He's my father.
[00:58:03.00]
- You don't say meet me out
for coffee someplace else.
[00:58:05.03]
- You wouldn't go in.
- No.
[00:58:06.08]
- You wouldn't even sleep in
a house that had vinyl in it.
[00:58:09.04]
- Push comes to shove,
sure, I might sleep in it.
[00:58:11.02]
I choose not to.
[00:58:13.02]
I would come out to New York
[00:58:14.09]
and help your parents find an alternative,
[00:58:17.03]
and come up with a reasonable solution
[00:58:19.08]
to making their home safe for them
[00:58:23.00]
and for the neighbors and
for everything around us.
[00:58:26.06]
- It's a deal.
- Okay.
[00:58:28.01]
[lively music]
[00:58:30.05]
- I had confidence that Patrick
would find an alternative,
[00:58:34.00]
mostly because I hadn't seen a
single house sided with vinyl
[00:58:37.02]
since I set foot in Marin County.
[00:58:40.03]
But whatever he came up with,
[00:58:42.00]
it seemed unlikely I'd be
able to buy it at Home Depot.
[00:58:46.00]
What vinyl has going for
it is that it's cheap.
[00:58:49.01]
And it's cheap because the
real cost to people's health
[00:58:52.01]
and the planet isn't
factored into the price.
[00:58:55.03]
If it were, it wouldn't be so cheap.
[00:58:59.04]
But if you can't afford a
house in the first place,
[00:59:01.09]
environmentally correct siding
[00:59:03.07]
is just not going to be your top priority.
[00:59:07.09]
- One, two, three.
[00:59:13.05]
- [Judith] As the lead corporate sponsors
[00:59:15.01]
for Habitat for Humanity,
[00:59:16.08]
the Vinyl Institute and the
Chlorine Chemistry Council
[00:59:20.00]
donate millions of dollars in
materials and labor each year
[00:59:23.07]
to build homes for people
[00:59:25.01]
who otherwise couldn't afford them.
[00:59:28.09]
[saw rattling]
[00:59:31.02]
- When you take a look
at all the vinyl products
[00:59:32.08]
that are gonna be in this house,
[00:59:34.06]
it starts with pipe and plumbing,
[00:59:37.02]
electrical boxes and electrical
wiring and window-frames,
[00:59:41.04]
siding and flooring.
[00:59:44.09]
I mean, when you think about it,
[00:59:46.00]
there's a lot of vinyl that's gonna be
[00:59:47.04]
in all of these houses.
[00:59:48.06]
So you'll have a heck of
a lot less maintenance
[00:59:52.02]
and I think that this house will look good
[00:59:54.04]
for many, many years.
[00:59:56.04]
- What's your house made of?
[00:59:58.00]
- Wood. [laughs]
[01:00:00.08]
[lively music]
[01:00:03.09]
- [Judith] The new products unveiled
[01:00:05.03]
at this year's Easter build
were the all-vinyl house
[01:00:11.01]
and the all-vinyl shed,
[01:00:13.01]
which they promised could be put together
[01:00:15.02]
in 20 minutes flat.
[01:00:18.05]
So, even I could put
something like this together?
[01:00:22.09]
- [Builder] Built tough
but not tough to build.
[01:00:25.08]
[hammers banging]
[lively music]
[01:00:42.01]
- I never imagined this
many people would be here
[01:00:44.02]
to help me build my home.
[01:00:46.02]
I thought, oh, I don't know what to say.
[01:00:50.04]
I just thank all y'all
for coming and helping me.
[01:00:53.03]
[lively music]
[01:00:56.09]
- All right, on three.
[01:00:57.07]
One, two, three
- [All] Vinyl!
[01:01:01.03]
[gentle music]
[01:01:04.07]
- I had a lot of questions
for the Vinyl Institute,
[01:01:07.09]
but I didn't ask them.
[01:01:09.08]
After all, at the end of these
five days of construction,
[01:01:13.03]
twenty-five families
were going to move into
[01:01:15.03]
their own homes.
[01:01:16.02]
- Praise God for the joy of this day.
[01:01:18.05]
A house that is a home.
[01:01:20.02]
Let us pray.
- It wasn't exactly
[01:01:22.03]
the right time to bring up dioxin,
[01:01:24.04]
or angiosarcoma of the liver.
[01:01:29.01]
So I went back to New York and
called the Vinyl Institute,
[01:01:32.07]
hoping to set up a more
formal, on-camera interview.
[01:01:36.08]
We definitely wanna come.
[01:01:38.05]
It's not quite clear whether
we can bring, you know,
[01:01:41.09]
did you decide whether your lawyer
[01:01:43.09]
is coming with you for sure?
[01:01:45.06]
Before they would even
consider being on camera
[01:01:48.04]
they wanted to get a comfort level.
[01:01:50.05]
So I suggested meeting
for lunch in New York
[01:01:53.04]
at a little place on 54th and
9th called the VYNL diner.
[01:01:58.02]
Just in case this was our only meeting,
[01:02:00.03]
I hired a paparazzi photographer
[01:02:02.04]
and planted him in a
truck across the street.
[01:02:07.02]
Over lunch, I mostly
answered their questions,
[01:02:10.00]
and tried to work in a few of my own.
[01:02:12.06]
At one point, I brought up dioxin.
[01:02:15.04]
One of them held up two sugar packets
[01:02:17.01]
and assured me that those
eight little grams of sweetener
[01:02:20.03]
represented all the dioxin released
[01:02:22.04]
in PVC production each year.
[01:02:25.06]
I should have had a comeback
for that, but I didn't.
[01:02:29.03]
So when they finally agreed
to an on-camera interview,
[01:02:32.02]
I started to worry that
maybe I was in over my head.
[01:02:35.07]
[camera clicking]
[01:02:38.04]
So I focused on working out
logistics for the interview.
[01:02:41.07]
[lively music]
[01:02:46.04]
We wanted a tour of a vinyl plant.
[01:02:48.06]
They suggested a Habitat
for Humanity house instead.
[01:02:52.00]
We countered with a location
in the middle of Lake Charles,
[01:02:54.09]
in front of a fountain donated
by a local PVC manufacturer,
[01:02:58.05]
but they had problems with that too.
[01:03:01.01]
Finally, we just left it up to them,
[01:03:03.04]
and they chose to hold the
interview in Baton Rouge,
[01:03:06.02]
in the heart of an area in
Louisiana known as Cancer Alley,
[01:03:10.02]
in a hotel at the intersection
of Corporate and Trust.
[01:03:14.01]
[lively music]
[01:03:18.06]
The night before the interview
[01:03:20.00]
I had what you might call
a crisis of confidence.
[01:03:23.03]
I had been cramming for weeks,
[01:03:25.02]
but I was going up against a
guy with a PhD in chemistry
[01:03:28.07]
who'd been working for the vinyl industry
[01:03:30.05]
for the last 22 years.
[01:03:33.02]
I needed a coach, so I
called Monique Harden,
[01:03:36.03]
an environmental lawyer
who had a lot of experience
[01:03:39.00]
dealing with the Vinyl Institute.
[01:03:40.07]
So anyway, I'm gonna just practice, okay?
[01:03:42.03]
- Right, right.
- All right.
[01:03:43.06]
- Between 1972 and 1974, from
everything that I understand,
[01:03:49.07]
you know, if Dr. Maltoni
was doing these studies
[01:03:52.01]
I'm in trouble.
[01:03:53.06]
- The dioxin levels in the
blood of Mossville residents
[01:03:57.06]
is significantly high.
[01:03:58.09]
- Do you think it's
crazy for someone like me
[01:04:00.06]
to be going head to
head with them tomorrow?
[01:04:02.03]
- I think a good strategy
[01:04:03.08]
overall is how you order your questions.
[01:04:06.03]
- There are people who
are very, very, very sick
[01:04:09.07]
who live in Mossville across the street
[01:04:12.01]
from the facilities that you represent
[01:04:14.00]
here in Louisiana.
[01:04:15.06]
Now, must we wait until their illness
[01:04:19.01]
is directly correlated to your emissions,
[01:04:21.08]
or do we try to address
your emissions now,
[01:04:24.08]
before everybody's dead?
[01:04:26.03]
How am I doing?
[01:04:27.07]
- You're not doing very well.
[01:04:29.07]
- Okay, so.
- Black skirt and red tops.
[01:04:32.04]
of course I have a bias in favor of that.
[01:04:35.07]
All right?
[01:04:36.05]
You're welcome.
[01:04:39.04]
- [Judith] The Vinyl Institute
had agreed to the interview
[01:04:41.05]
with the following ground rules, no props.
[01:04:45.04]
Which meant no sugar packets, no salt,
[01:04:48.03]
and there went my question about sex toys.
[01:04:50.08]
[lively music]
[01:04:53.01]
No surprise documents or videotapes.
[01:04:55.08]
No questions outside the
expertise of their expert,
[01:04:59.06]
and no more than thirty
minutes for the whole thing.
[01:05:02.08]
I was told to leave my
blue vinyl siding at home.
[01:05:05.08]
[lively music]
[01:05:11.04]
We decided to shoot the interview
[01:05:12.09]
like a typical magazine format show,
[01:05:15.05]
one camera on the interviewer,
one on the interviewee.
[01:05:19.03]
Then they told us they
wanted to film us too,
[01:05:21.08]
so we brought an extra camera
[01:05:23.03]
so we could film them,
filming us, filming them.
[01:05:26.02]
Are we rolling?
- We are.
[01:05:27.07]
- Yeah, okay.
- We're all set.
[01:05:28.08]
- All right, so it's a chemical
fact that when PVC burns,
[01:05:32.05]
it can create dioxin,
[01:05:33.08]
one of the most carcinogenic
substances ever generated.
[01:05:36.05]
The interview went more
or less like I expected.
[01:05:39.03]
I asked my pre-approved questions
[01:05:41.02]
and he did his job, really well in fact.
[01:05:45.01]
- Almost any fuel that you can imagine,
[01:05:46.09]
you will make some dioxin.
[01:05:48.09]
Dioxin is a material that has both natural
[01:05:52.08]
and man-made sources.
[01:05:55.01]
They're finding dioxin in
clays that were laid down
[01:05:58.04]
45 million years ago.
[01:06:00.05]
It's all around us.
[01:06:01.06]
It's not a good chemical.
[01:06:03.01]
And the good news is
[01:06:04.07]
that dioxin emissions to the
environment are declining,
[01:06:07.04]
and have been declining
for the last 30 years.
[01:06:09.09]
- In 1972, a European study
by Dr. Maltoni concluded
[01:06:13.08]
that exposure to vinyl
chloride was causing
[01:06:16.01]
angiosarcoma of the liver
in laboratory animals.
[01:06:19.02]
Two years later BF Goodrich
vinyl chloride workers
[01:06:21.09]
were reported dead from the same disease.
[01:06:24.06]
Was the vinyl industry aware
of Dr. Maltoni's findings
[01:06:27.05]
prior to BF Goodrich's alarming news?
[01:06:30.05]
- I don't know the answer to that
[01:06:33.02]
since I wasn't in the
industry in those days.
[01:06:34.09]
I don't know who knew what in those days.
[01:06:36.09]
But what I can tell you is,
[01:06:38.04]
it was a very short time
before they reported
[01:06:40.06]
the Maltoni study to the government,
[01:06:42.01]
and before actions started
[01:06:43.09]
that eventually changed
emissions and exposure to VCM.
[01:06:47.09]
Those people were exposed
to very high levels
[01:06:50.03]
under technology that is
obviously obsolete today.
[01:06:53.04]
It is well known that the association
[01:06:55.06]
of angiosarcoma of the liver
is with very high exposures
[01:06:58.05]
to vinyl chloride, not with low exposures.
[01:07:01.01]
- What about the fabricators,
[01:07:02.01]
the people who fabricate vinyl siding,
[01:07:04.02]
the siding on my parents' house,
[01:07:05.05]
the PVC pipes in their bathroom?
[01:07:07.07]
- When these fabricators,
[01:07:08.09]
when their operations are
analyzed for vinyl chloride,
[01:07:11.07]
you find none.
[01:07:12.09]
- None, not even one PPM?
- Not even one PPM, none.
[01:07:17.02]
- So are the fabricators being studied?
[01:07:18.07]
- The fabricators aren't
being studied themselves,
[01:07:21.01]
but we have done studies in
their facilities to analyze
[01:07:24.00]
for whether there's vinyl chloride there,
[01:07:25.08]
and you don't find any.
[01:07:26.07]
- So that's a study that
you guys could give us
[01:07:28.05]
if we wanted to look at it?
[01:07:29.07]
- It's been done a number of years ago.
[01:07:31.05]
It's clear that the
fabricators are not at risk.
[01:07:34.00]
- Now, I have seen documentation
[01:07:36.04]
that there are some fabricators
that actually have had
[01:07:39.00]
angiosarcoma of the liver and are dead.
[01:07:41.02]
- I think you'd have to show me the study,
[01:07:42.07]
because I'm unaware of that.
[01:07:43.07]
- It's not a study,
well, it's not a study,
[01:07:45.00]
it's a death report.
[01:07:46.06]
You know, those reports that
people get after they're dead.
[01:07:50.00]
- I'm sorry, I'd have to see
what you're referring to.
[01:07:54.00]
- Okay.
[01:07:57.05]
- [Sheila] If you are ready,
[01:07:58.04]
if you ask your last question, we'll be,
[01:08:00.05]
we're already past 30 minutes.
[01:08:03.04]
- Should I ask another one or?
[01:08:04.08]
- [Dan] Ask you a last question.
[01:08:07.02]
- We think there are
complications to recycling PVC.
[01:08:09.07]
Is there a chance that
that's why major companies
[01:08:12.02]
like IKEA, General Motors,
Nike, Mattel, Honda
[01:08:15.07]
are phasing PVC out of their product lines
[01:08:17.05]
such as furniture, cars, sneakers,
[01:08:19.01]
IV bags, and Barbie Dolls?
[01:08:21.02]
- PVC is a good product.
[01:08:23.02]
PVC is used in a number
of different areas.
[01:08:25.04]
People choose materials for-
[01:08:26.08]
- We don't have time.
- Okay.
[01:08:27.09]
- We actually, I'm sorry to interrupt,
[01:08:29.06]
but we have very limited time
and it's about to be over.
[01:08:32.07]
So, why did those companies
make those choices?
[01:08:36.01]
Please tell us.
[01:08:37.00]
- Companies make choices
about materials all the time.
[01:08:39.07]
They choose PVC, they
choose other materials.
[01:08:42.00]
It seems that the only time
that we hear news about it
[01:08:43.09]
is when they've chosen to
use something other than PVC.
[01:08:46.03]
People choose PVC as well.
[01:08:53.02]
- I think we're done.
- We're definitely done.
[01:08:56.01]
So.
[01:08:57.08]
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
[01:08:58.06]
- [Dan] Thank you very much.
[01:09:04.05]
- It was 30 minutes, 31 minutes, probably.
[01:09:09.03]
Bill Carroll wasn't scared of me.
[01:09:11.06]
He had no reason to be.
[01:09:13.03]
So far, the American vinyl
industry has been involved
[01:09:15.09]
in a few civil suits and
a handful of companies
[01:09:18.07]
have had to pay some fines.
[01:09:21.07]
But Bill probably wouldn't be so confident
[01:09:24.00]
if he lived in Venice.
[01:09:29.01]
There, the government is
prosecuting a landmark case
[01:09:32.01]
against PVC manufacturers,
[01:09:34.05]
for knowingly polluting the Venice Lagoon
[01:09:37.02]
and endangering the
health of their employees.
[01:09:41.04]
But it isn't the companies
[01:09:42.06]
that have been named in this suit.
[01:09:44.06]
It's 31 individual vinyl executives,
[01:09:48.01]
and they're each being tried as criminals.
[01:09:51.06]
The charge is manslaughter.
[01:09:55.06]
Who are you here for?
[01:09:57.05]
[woman speaking Italian]
[01:10:07.04]
[woman speaking Italian continues]
[01:10:17.05]
[gentle music]
[01:10:26.04]
- Dr. Maltoni was called
as a witness in the trial
[01:10:29.09]
and he testified that his
studies had clearly predicted
[01:10:32.07]
the human health effects
of vinyl chloride exposure
[01:10:35.06]
as early as 1972.
[01:10:39.06]
Since then over 100 former
Enichem workers have died.
[01:10:44.03]
600 others suffer health problems
[01:10:46.08]
linked to vinyl chloride exposure.
[01:10:50.04]
And even though the families
[01:10:51.06]
have already been compensated financially,
[01:10:54.04]
they still go to the trial day after day.
[01:10:57.02]
[gentle music]
[01:10:59.09]
[attendees talking indistinctly]
[01:11:09.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian]
[01:11:19.05]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[01:11:29.06]
[Maltoni speaking Italian]
[01:11:34.06]
[Ampelio speaking Italian]
[01:11:44.05]
[Ampelio speaking Italian continues]
[01:11:47.03]
[gentle music]
[01:11:56.06]
[woman speaking Italian]
[01:12:05.08]
[woman speaking Italian continues]
[01:12:15.08]
[woman speaking Italian continues]
[01:12:20.04]
[gentle music]
[01:12:30.04]
[gentle music continues]
[01:12:40.04]
[gentle music continues]
[01:12:44.09]
- If the industry knew
about its shortcomings
[01:12:48.09]
many, many years ago
why wasn't it brought?
[01:12:52.03]
- Because they didn't care.
[01:12:54.01]
- Because they were
interested in only one thing.
[01:12:56.00]
- Money.
- Look at the bottom line
[01:12:58.02]
of each year's sales,
[01:13:02.00]
and as long as you can
keep selling this stuff,
[01:13:04.09]
why take it off the market?
[01:13:07.04]
My only sorrows that I spent
the money for the vinyl,
[01:13:10.01]
had I known this beforehand,
I wouldn't have bought it.
[01:13:20.00]
- [Judith] My parents were
starting to come around.
[01:13:22.06]
But it was one thing to admit
[01:13:24.03]
that putting the vinyl on
the house had been a mistake,
[01:13:27.09]
taking it off the house was
something else altogether.
[01:13:32.05]
But you believe in what
we're doing, right?
[01:13:35.07]
- Yes, you're trying to
save the environment.
[01:13:37.05]
Yes, I believe in that.
[01:13:43.02]
Had we known what you're telling us now,
[01:13:45.06]
we never would have put it up.
[01:13:47.03]
And I'm sure people all around us
[01:13:49.05]
wouldn't be using it either.
[01:13:50.04]
- So that's the point.
[01:13:53.01]
It's not like we're people
who've never been hurt before
[01:13:55.08]
by toxics and chemicals.
[01:13:58.09]
We're the perfect family to
take the vinyl off the house.
[01:14:04.05]
- Bring me the materials, show it to me.
[01:14:09.04]
- Either my mother was getting it,
[01:14:11.03]
or she just wanted me to go away.
[01:14:14.00]
In any case, I was ready.
[01:14:16.08]
I'd already done a little
thinking about materials,
[01:14:19.05]
and I had set my parameters.
[01:14:22.00]
I wanted something that could be recycled,
[01:14:24.07]
that would never hurt anybody
at any stage of its lifecycle,
[01:14:27.09]
and that the average
consumer could afford.
[01:14:32.07]
[lively music]
[01:14:40.02]
[zip rattling]
[lively music]
[01:14:51.06]
- This is flat, this is cold,
[01:14:53.09]
this is not personal.
[01:14:56.01]
And for me, that's an
important aspect of a home
[01:14:59.07]
is that hand appeal,
[01:15:02.05]
and Old World craftsmanship
means something to me,
[01:15:06.00]
and hand finishes, although
they can be more expensive,
[01:15:11.09]
they embody the building
with a different spirit.
[01:15:16.02]
And that's something
that's important to me,
[01:15:17.09]
is that a living space
has spirit, it has soul,
[01:15:22.06]
it's someplace that's
special that you want to be.
[01:15:28.01]
- Look how, that's beautiful.
[01:15:31.00]
- That's not the issue
that I have in mind.
[01:15:36.02]
We have to sell this place, Judy.
[01:15:37.05]
- I know, but Mom.
[01:15:38.09]
- With stucco on it, on this
house, it's not gonna sell.
[01:15:41.08]
- Are you kidding?
[01:15:43.03]
- No, I'm not kidding.
[01:15:44.02]
- What if we asked,
just for the hell of it,
[01:15:45.09]
just what if we asked somebody,
could we ask somebody?
[01:15:48.00]
- 'Cause it's gonna look
like a little adobe hut.
[01:15:50.08]
- I was thinking that the, the
coral red would be beautiful.
[01:15:54.06]
- It doesn't go in this neighborhood.
[01:15:56.06]
- Mom, there's stucco everywhere.
[01:15:57.06]
- I don't care.
[01:15:58.04]
But those other stucco
houses are different.
[01:16:00.08]
A different style.
[01:16:02.02]
And this is gonna look
like a little adobe hut
[01:16:04.09]
on the outside.
- You think?
[01:16:05.08]
- Yes.
[lively music]
[01:16:08.03]
- [Judith] Patty's initial
consultation with my folks
[01:16:10.08]
was not exactly a success.
[01:16:12.09]
But he stuck around for a few days
[01:16:14.07]
and eventually they warmed up to him.
[01:16:18.09]
- If you can get up on the roof,
[01:16:21.04]
the thing that my wife
won't let me do any longer
[01:16:23.02]
- Yeah.
[01:16:25.01]
- Notice the angle that it's at right now.
[01:16:26.07]
- Sure.
[01:16:27.08]
- It's gotta be turned five
or six degrees that way.
[01:16:32.07]
- Sure.
- Just a little bit.
[01:16:33.06]
- I just want to do a little rotation.
[01:16:34.09]
- Yeah, just a little rotation.
[01:16:36.01]
- Clockwise.
[01:16:37.00]
Gimme a pair of pliers, and
a couple of screwdrivers,
[01:16:39.06]
and a ladder, and cut me loose.
[01:16:41.03]
- You got it, that's a deal.
[01:16:43.00]
- Look at that, here I am
shaking on camera again.
[01:16:45.02]
Where am I gonna end up now?
[01:16:47.07]
- Can you hear me?
- T10-4, big mama.
[01:16:51.03]
- Okay, it's very fuzzy, and the sound
[01:16:54.06]
isn't coming in good.
[01:16:56.02]
- I am making some adjustments.
[01:16:58.02]
- Much better, pretty good.
[01:17:00.09]
- Yeah, this is a good angle.
[01:17:02.06]
- Dad, do you wanna go take a look
[01:17:03.07]
and see what you think?
[01:17:05.07]
- All right.
- Because we're in
[01:17:06.06]
the position that they've said it's good.
[01:17:08.07]
- Pat, you've earned
yourself one or two beers,
[01:17:10.07]
as much as you want.
[01:17:12.04]
- Too bad I don't drink, but thank you.
[01:17:14.02]
- How about some pizza?
- Pizza would be great
[01:17:16.07]
if we can find pizza without cheese.
[01:17:18.06]
[lively music]
[01:17:22.05]
- [Judith] In the end, my mother vetoed
[01:17:24.02]
everything Patty suggested,
[01:17:26.01]
even the most affordable solutions.
[01:17:28.05]
Either it didn't suit the house,
[01:17:30.00]
it didn't go with the neighborhood,
[01:17:31.05]
or it couldn't be put on in
time for the High Holidays,
[01:17:34.02]
which were coming up fast.
[01:17:37.04]
The bottom line was,
whatever material we choose
[01:17:40.03]
was going to have to look more or less
[01:17:42.00]
like the vinyl siding,
[01:17:43.06]
which itself had been
embossed to look like wood.
[01:17:47.09]
So I headed for upstate New York,
[01:17:50.00]
in search of a barn
that could be the future
[01:17:52.02]
outside of my parents' house.
[01:17:54.04]
[lively music]
[01:18:04.03]
[lively music continues]
[01:18:06.09]
You'd put this on the
outside of your house, right?
[01:18:09.04]
- I would buy this lumber
and use this lumber.
[01:18:12.00]
- Yeah.
- It's way stronger
[01:18:13.00]
than any wood you can get nowadays.
[01:18:14.05]
Way, way stronger.
[01:18:16.00]
[wood cracking]
[01:18:23.02]
- Huh?
[01:18:25.09]
- This is gonna be hard
for my mother to picture.
[01:18:31.06]
[chainsaw whirring]
[01:18:38.02]
I'd done my homework on the
reclaimed wood business,
[01:18:40.07]
and I knew all the right questions to ask
[01:18:44.00]
including what kind of paint
had been used on the barn.
[01:18:47.01]
[wood cracking]
[01:18:52.01]
Unfortunately, the answer was lead.
[01:18:58.01]
[lively music]
[01:19:03.00]
In the midst of this wood crisis,
[01:19:04.09]
I did a round of research
on environmentally-friendly
[01:19:07.07]
new plastics that one day
could very well replace vinyl,
[01:19:11.07]
but I couldn't find one that
could be used as house siding.
[01:19:15.00]
Then I learned about
sustainably harvested timber,
[01:19:17.07]
and considered cedar
shakes from Eugene, Oregon,
[01:19:20.05]
but they couldn't be
delivered by Rosh Hashanah.
[01:19:23.07]
There was also the siding
milled from petrified trees
[01:19:26.06]
that had been dredged up from
the bottom of the Great Lakes,
[01:19:29.07]
but trucking it to Merrick
was prohibitively expensive.
[01:19:33.02]
[lively music]
[01:19:35.08]
Finally, a reclaimed wood
specialist in Vermont
[01:19:39.01]
sold us some lumber that
had once been the roof
[01:19:41.07]
of an old mill in Nashua, New Hampshire.
[01:19:45.07]
It cost a fortune.
[01:19:47.03]
[lively music]
[01:19:57.03]
[lively music continues]
[01:20:07.03]
[lively music continues]
[01:20:08.09]
It wasn't until I wrote the check
[01:20:10.05]
that I realized what I'd done.
[01:20:13.02]
I'd been so focused on
finding a building material
[01:20:15.09]
that was recyclable,
and didn't harm anyone
[01:20:18.04]
at any stage of its lifecycle,
[01:20:20.06]
that I had let go of the one thing
[01:20:22.04]
that probably mattered
most, affordability.
[01:20:26.07]
Because if my parents
had had to pay for this,
[01:20:29.03]
they couldn't have.
[01:20:31.02]
I paid for it out of my film budget,
[01:20:34.00]
which was partly financed
by the settlement I received
[01:20:36.07]
because DES exposure gave me cancer.
[01:20:40.00]
I like to call it my uterus money.
[01:20:44.02]
Of course, most middle-class Americans
[01:20:46.05]
don't have uterus money.
[01:20:49.00]
But since I did, I wanted to make a point.
[01:20:52.01]
That consumers have the
power to transform a market
[01:20:55.04]
and make a hazardous product obsolete.
[01:20:59.01]
Consider asbestos,
[01:21:00.09]
one of the primary building blocks
[01:21:02.05]
of post-World War Two America,
[01:21:04.05]
used for everything from homes and schools
[01:21:07.05]
to the pipes that carry drinking water.
[01:21:10.05]
Like with vinyl, the asbestos
industry knew all along
[01:21:13.08]
that the manufacture of their
product was causing cancer,
[01:21:17.05]
and they hid the truth.
[01:21:19.08]
It wasn't until news got
out that workers were dying
[01:21:22.07]
that consumers realized
they too were at risk,
[01:21:25.08]
and stopped buying asbestos products.
[01:21:28.08]
Liability rose, consumer demand fell,
[01:21:31.08]
and manufacturers started
to devise alternatives.
[01:21:36.01]
So who knows.
[01:21:38.05]
Maybe the next great product revolution
[01:21:41.04]
could start with our house.
[01:21:45.03]
- We started on this wall, right?
[01:21:47.09]
- You started right here.
- That's right.
[01:21:49.02]
I can't believe you're doing this.
[01:21:51.04]
It looks like it was
done yesterday, right?
[01:21:54.02]
- Yeah, this has nothing
to do with your work, Jer.
[01:21:58.04]
- This is a Side Swiper.
[01:22:00.09]
It's a siding removal tool.
[01:22:03.07]
This is made for taking off vinyl siding?
[01:22:05.07]
- That's all it does.
[01:22:06.07]
[lively music]
[siding cracking]
[01:22:16.06]
[lively music continues]
[siding cracking continues]
[01:22:26.06]
[lively music continues]
[siding cracking continues]
[01:22:36.06]
[lively music continues]
[siding cracking continues]
[01:22:46.03]
[lively music continues]
[siding cracking continues]
[01:22:48.05]
- So that was something that he put in.
[01:22:51.03]
- Yeah.
[01:22:53.06]
- It'll be very much like that.
[01:22:55.02]
- Very much like that.
- Smell it.
[01:22:57.09]
Smell, it's good.
[01:22:58.07]
- Does it have an odor?
- It has an odor.
[01:23:01.00]
- It's pine.
- It's pretty, huh?
[01:23:03.09]
- Yes.
- Mom said,
[01:23:06.01]
she sort of had a thing
with me today, and.
[01:23:09.09]
- She doesn't like the siding.
[01:23:11.00]
- I don't know, I don't think
she's looked closely at it.
[01:23:13.01]
I don't think she.
- What is it
[01:23:15.01]
that she objects to?
[01:23:16.05]
Does she object to the bead?
[01:23:18.06]
- She hasn't looked closely at it.
[01:23:19.09]
She really hasn't.
[01:23:20.08]
Not since it arrived.
- No, she hasn't come
[01:23:21.07]
outside at all.
- She hasn't, no.
[01:23:23.04]
- She hasn't come outside.
- It's a protest.
[01:23:24.03]
It's still a remainder-
- Mom's doing a sit-in.
[01:23:30.08]
By this point, my mother had had enough.
[01:23:33.08]
She hadn't ever said no
to taking the vinyl off,
[01:23:36.09]
but she never exactly said yes either.
[01:23:40.02]
It was my father who pushed for it.
[01:23:42.06]
He knew he wouldn't be
able to leave me the house,
[01:23:44.08]
since they were planning to sell it,
[01:23:46.07]
so he wanted to give me
the outside of it now.
[01:23:51.03]
My mother's only request
was that we keep the house
[01:23:54.00]
the same shade of blue
[01:23:55.06]
and make sure that the next
owners wouldn't have to paint it
[01:23:58.06]
for a really long time.
[01:24:01.08]
So the 100 year-old pine
[01:24:03.09]
was treated with the least
toxic blue stain we could find.
[01:24:08.01]
It was custom-made and
special-ordered from Canada.
[01:24:12.00]
[lively music]
[01:24:22.00]
[lively music continues]
[01:24:32.00]
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 97 minutes
Date: 2004
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adult
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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