DuPont's 20-Year Battle with Corporate Greed: The Poisoned Water and One Lawyer's Fight for Justice

Amazon Customer: A must read for everyone

United States on Oct 12, 2023

Brigid P. Gallagher: Having watched the movie Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo as Rob Bilott, I was keen to learn more about PFOA and the legal battles Rob fought and won against DuPont.
I was not disappointed.
"Exposure" takes the reader on a rollercoaster journey through two decades of legal investigations, epidemiological evaluations, harrowing stories and a dogged pursuit of the truth, from an exceptional lawyer and a huge team of medical and legal experts.
It is a real life example, that brings to mind the Cree prophecy "When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money."

United Kingdom on Jul 14, 2023

Disney2019: This book was so educational. After reading the book, I no longer drink tap water and use a sink and shower filter. The movie was also entertaining.

United States on Jul 04, 2023

Praveen singh: Nice 👍

India on Mar 16, 2022

Thomas Grimes: The book is quite extensive history in an easy to read book. The story starts with the taking Earl Tennet's case to sue DuPont. Tennet lost his herd of cattle due to the contamination of water sources on his land. He died of heath problems caused by exposure of C-8 dumped into the nearby land fill that spilled over into the creek that ran through his property. His well was poisoned by the very toxic chemical. The entire region near the DuPont Teflon manufacturing plant was exposed to uncontrolled release of C8.

The author could have done a far better job early in the book to explain exactly what is the toxin in question and separate the chemistry of Teflon polymers, FEP and TFPE from the processing aid, C8 (PFOA, actually the ammonium salt of PFOA). Lyon's book does a good job to explain it is not Teflon polymer that is the problem rather the processing aid used to make Teflon polymers is the toxin. However, take note that these Teflon polymers can be degraded to produce the toxic C8 chemical and that is also well explained. The point is the reader can get confused about what chemical substance is the problem. Sadly, to date DuPont has never found a substitute to eliminate...

United States on Oct 04, 2020

J. Smith: The book is well written and follows a timeline put into place by actual events. There are a few factual errors that will leave the reader with the wrong impression of the toxicological science of PFAS, but it does not detract from the story: A single man rising up against a corporate giant.

While the author and hero of the story paints corporate America with dark brush strokes, there are many bright jewels of corporate responsibility (not by E.I. DuPont) that are not told. Similarly, The author paints a bleak picture of the State and Federal regulatory agencies (e.g., EPA) without fully addressing the narrow legal framework under which they must operate. While EPA appears to be a reluctant partner in the story's positive outcome, it is the very stringent guidelines within which it operates that dictate much of its inability to take action (e.g., derivation of a drinking water standard). This does not take away from the subterfuge of E.I. DuPont meddling in State and EPA actions/inactions, the lies and misinformation fed to regulators and the Tenets, the reliance of E.I. DuPont on a campaign of misinformation, or the startling incompetence of Regulators to recognize the...

United States on May 21, 2020

Richard John Guthrie: Reading Robert Bilott’s ‘Exposure’ on Du Pont’s chemical pollution in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the book gives a great deal of legal and personal background to the story which I first had revealed to me recently in the film Dark Waters - fine film, worthy of nominations this year of which it received none (go figure).

In jumping the fence inside his corporate defence firm to take the plaintiff’s side of a lone farmer, Earl Tennant, against Du Pont, Robert Bilott uncovers an ugly story of corporate harm done to the community of Parkersburg and surrounding populations. The casual and arrogant ease with which this powerful corporation covered up major illness links (probable cause to major life threatening and altering conditions eventually found by a long independent exhaustive scientific study of nearly 70,000 people) which led to deaths from a ruined natural water supply in the area (Earl among those who died) in the pursuit of annual profit, for Teflon and other products, is as stunning as it was breathtaking. A jury finally found for a class action civil case against the company - who put up a fierce public relations & legal defence - the plaintiffs...

United Kingdom on Apr 01, 2020

Hande Z: This is a little bit like Erin Brockovich, the lawyer who fought the Pacific Gas & Electric Company in 1993 which ended in a US$333m pay-out by the company. Although the total pay-outs were not as large as the Pacific Gas case, the drama is as exciting. Like the Pacific Gas case, this book was written by the lawyer who took on the corporate giant – DuPont.

Bilott is a corporate defence lawyer, but in this case, he became the small man’s plaintiff lawyer. He begins this book with the intriguing brief from a poor farmer, Earl Tennant, that came to him through his grandmother, Alma White. Farmer Earl’s cattle and even his family were all falling ill. He suspected – no, he strongly believed – that it was something that the big company DuPont pumped into the waters of Dry Run Creek nearby.

This book is the exciting account of how Bilott took on Earl Tennant’s case and fought a court action that resulted in a satisfactory settlement for Tennant. But that was only half the story because part of the settlement required a Science Panel to study the effect of the deadly agent, known by various names such as AFPO, PFOA, FC 143, and C8. It is the chemical used to...

Singapore on Jan 24, 2020