Closing arguments begin in Sterigenics trial over ethylene oxide emissions
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Closing arguments began Thursday in the first trial involving of a string of lawsuits against the Willowbrook plant Sterigenics.
Sue Kamuda sued the medical device sterilization company, claiming emissions from the plant near her home caused her cancer.
The company used the carcinogen ethylene oxide – or EO – to sterilize medical equipment, but Sterigenics claims it is not to blame for Kamuda's breast cancer.
Kamuda is the first of more than 700 plaintiffs who blame Sterigenics for making them sick by emitting the cancer-causing toxin into the surrounding community for decades.
Kamuda testified under oath last week that she would have moved out of Willowbrook if she'd known about the dangerous ethylene oxide released by the Sterigenics plant. She fought back tears while on the stand, talking about being diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer more than two decades after moving to her home in Willowbrook.
She also described her shock after being told the plant near her home had been emitting a known toxin that whole time. Kamuda told the Daley Center courtroom jury that moving into her dream home with her husband and three children in Willowbrook in 1985 was "probably the happiest day" of her life.
But she didn't know that same year, Sterigenics, moved in as well, just a third of a mile from her home.
The Willowbrook plant used EO from 1985 until it was shut down by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in 2019.
Kamuda was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007. She said it was a shock to her, because she has no family history of breast cancer, and a DNA test showed she didn't have the breast cancer causing gene.
She underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation; and it wasn't until 2018 that an EPA study found that people living near the Willowbrook plant faced some the nation's highest cancer risks.
Kamuda said it was a neighbor who alerted her to the findings and invited her to a community meeting. She said she had no idea that Sterigenics had been emitting the toxic gas all of those years, and she would have moved her family if she had known.
On the defense side, there are three corporate defendants — Griffith Laboratories, the original parent company; Sterigenics; and Sotera Health, which purchased Sterigenics in 2004.
The defense has said EO is not to blame for Kamuda's breast cancer, and that experts and studies will show that she wasn't exposed to enough of the toxic gas to make her sick.
The CBS 2 Investigators have been exposing allegations made by Willowbrook residents against this plant for years.