East Palestine Anthology Series
A collection of information in regards to the East Palestine derailment and the information that has come out since.
Cover image from Newsweek with credit provided to: PHOTO BY ANGELO MERENDINO/GETTY IMAGES
This series serves as a hub for the ongoing fallout of East Palestine following the derailment, release, and controlled burning of various chemicals that have left the locals and those in the wider vicinity concerned over their own health.
Information continues to come out about the situation, albeit at a slower place, so this series is a work-in-progress that will be added to as more information and testing results are provided.
Note that the information below may be outdated, and that there are likely to be inaccuracies. As this is intended to assess information as it came out the main focus was trying to find whatever information was available and providing some context.
Vinyl Chloride in the State of Ohio
First reports of the train derailment focused on the fact that vinyl chloride tanks comprised a large portion of the cargo on the Norfolk Southern train. As such, vinyl chloride became the main focus of media attention. Working on the limited information available I focused this post on information regarding vinyl chloride and its toxicity.
A Follow-up on the East Palestine Train Derailment
Further context to the train derailment was added in this follow-up, with some hesitancy raised towards the concerns over vinyl chloride in particular due to inconsistencies in reporting. Instead, additional information is provided in regards to two combustion products of vinyl chloride burning (due to the controlled fire); phosgene and hydrogen chloride. Toxicology data of these two agents are provided in this follow-up.
Did the East Palestine chemical fire lead to more toxic agents?
As the fallout continued and more reports of symptoms came in additional questions were raised towards the combustion products of the derailment, mostly directed at the possible production of dioxin. Dioxin is considered a highly toxic agent and carcinogenic. This post provided a molecular perspective on dioxin and why there’s more to the dioxin story than pure fear.
East Palestine Sample Data (So Far)
Initial data on water and soil samples collected are provided in this post, with results suggesting that the air and water are “relatively safe”. This comes as people continue to report on symptoms, suggesting something is causing these symptoms.
Keep in mind that many of the links in this article are now dead as the EPA appears to have shuffled their documents to other places on their website.
More ongoing uncertainty in East Palestine
Although results of water and sample data are provided, there appears to still be limited information that doesn’t fully explain the situation. More importantly, there appears to be a lack of toxicology data for the locals.
Ohio EPA Soil and Water Data for East Palestine
Additional soil and water data are provided in this post, mostly coming from the EPA themselves as prior reports came from Norfolk Southern and their hired agencies.
This post also raises some hesitancy. As many people have taken to reporting on East Palestine there have also been reports on how to “deal” with things such as dioxin testing. Information is included in this post raising hesitancy to trusting all information online, with the end raising the point that more education is needed in detailing what is going on in East Palestine.
Cheap, Performative Apologies for those in East Palestine
This post was more of a commentary about the lack of transparency, with additional information on acrolein being reported.
Preliminary dioxin results in East Palestine
More than a month after the derailment information regarding dioxin finally comes out, although in an extremely limited fashion and collected solely from soil being moved from East Palestine to other places for disposal.
This post looks at a post from The Guardian commenting that dioxin levels were “hundreds” of times higher than should normally be allowed. I raise some criticisms to this point, although there are some details of The Guardian article that I overlooked and further assessed in a following post, including the difference between dioxin levels and toxic equivalence measures.
A correction to 3/20/2023 East Palestine dioxin post
This post corrects one of the overlooked measures that I previously reported on with respect to the TEQ values. However, here I raise questions toward the 700 ppt TEQ value used by The Guardian and picked up by other outlets as there are serious questions about this value. In addition, social media has taken to raising this idea that many lab testing companies such as LabCorp is no longer doing dioxin testing, with no clear corroborating evidence provided for this claim. This highlights a serious issue in which a lot of misinformation has come out capitalizing on this situation.
Interim update to East Palestine
The latest information on East Palestine is provided, with information that results from dioxin testing should be coming out in the following weeks. Emphasis is also added to the fact that a timeline of events, including symptom onset of the locals has never been accurately documented. Evidence suggests that several chemicals were released prior to the controlled fire, with one local account noting symptoms before the fire. This raises questions as to whether people may have been exposed to chemicals before the controlled fire and may be partially responsible for some of the symptoms presented.
Of note, acrylates appeared to have been released and burned off prior to the controlled fire, and may be partially responsible for the elevated acrolein levels noticed.
I’m not sure how long this series will go for. I’ve taken to documenting information because it’s apparent that there’s been a lack of transparency and information being provided on this situation. This also comes with the fact that many speculations have been raised that obfuscate the real issues of tying the symptoms of the locals to actual chemical agents. More importantly, given that we are still yet to figure out what exactly is causing vaccine adverse reactions I’ve taken to wanting to see this through to hopefully get some answers and resolutions to everything going on in East Palestine.
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