Hawaii families receive payouts for 2021 fuel leak that sickened thousands
A federal judge has awarded more than $680,000 to 17 families who say they were sickened by a leak from a second-world-war era fuel tank into a US Navy drinking water system in Hawaii in 2021.
The bellwether cases set the legal tone for another 7,500 military family members, civilians and service members whose lawsuits are still awaiting resolution.
US district judge Leslie Kobayashi handed down the ruling on Wednesday, awarding from $5,000 to more than $104,000 to each plaintiff. In her order, Kobayashi wrote that it was clear that even though the contaminated water could have caused many of the kinds of medical problems the military families experienced, there wasn't enough evidence to prove a direct link.
The military built the Red Hill fuel tanks into the side of a mountain in the early 1940s to protect them from aerial attack. The site was in the hills above Pearl Harbor and on top of an aquifer equipped with wells that provided drinking water to the navy and to Honolulu's municipal water system.
In 2021, jet fuel gushed from a ruptured pipe in the military-run tank farm, leaking into a well that supplied water to housing and offices in and around the sprawling base. Some 6,000 people suffered nausea, headaches, rashes and other symptoms.
The amount awarded to each of plaintiff was significantly smaller than the roughly $225,000 to $1.25m that their attorney, Kristina Baehr, requested during the two-week trial in federal court in Honolulu.
As bellwether plaintiffs, the 17 were chosen because they were seen as representative of the thousands of other people whose cases are still pending.
Baehr called the damage awards disappointing but said the families 'prevailed against all odds against the US Government'.
'These families can be proud that they helped prove to the world what truly happened when the Navy poisoned the water supply near Pearl Harbor and sickened so many,' Baehr said in a news release. 'The Court rejected the Government's argument that thousands of our clients were just psychosomatic and that there was not enough fuel to make anyone sick.'
Baehr said the legal team was reviewing options for resolving the thousands of remaining cases.
The government admitted liability for the spill before the trial began, but its attorneys disputed whether the plaintiffs were exposed to enough jet fuel to cause the vomiting, rashes and other alleged negative health effects.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The secret treatment that's better than blue pills and Botox: Middle-aged men rave about the cheap injections that make them look and feel 'alpha' again: 'I've finally got my edge back'
For decades, the tools of male anti-ageing were predictable. A discreet prescription for the little blue pill, a secret stash of human growth hormone (HGH), maybe even a home gym that mostly gathered dust.
Medical News Today
2 hours ago
- Medical News Today
Autism: What to know about increasing diagnoses
A family medicine physician helps Medical News Today fact-check recent claims about the prevalence of autism and its risk factors. Image credit: Jennifer Bogle/Stocksy. Recently, there has been increasing awareness about autism diagnoses and their complexity. At the same time, the United States federal health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made several debated claims about autism prevalence. He has claimed that autism cases are on the rise, and that autism has become 'an epidemic'. He also claimed that environmental toxins are to blame for autism. A board certified family medicine physician helps Medical News Today fact-check these claims. Posts on social media platforms have recently boosted awareness and acceptance of autism, as users report their own experiences of receiving a diagnosis for, and living with this neurodevelopmental condition. Some of the buzz around this topic, however, has also fed discussions around an apparent rise in autism diagnoses in the United States. U.S. Federal Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has recently made a series of claims regarding this apparent rise. These claims seem to suggest that autism has become a public health emergency in the U.S. What exactly did the federal health secretary claim, and how do those claims stack up against existing scientific evidence? Medical News Today set out to fact-check them with the help of one of our trusted experts, David Cutler, MD, a board-certified family medicine physician at Providence Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, CA. According to the new CDC report, one out of every 36 children in the U.S. has a diagnosis of autism, up from an estimated one in 44 children in 2021. However, 'the apparent rise in autism diagnoses in the U.S. is primarily due to improved awareness, expanded diagnostic criteria, and enhanced screening practices, rather than a true increase in prevalence,' Cutler told MNT . The family medicine physician offered a breakdown of the key factors that are most likely contributing to the observed rise in autism diagnoses. 'This change has led to more individuals, particularly those with milder symptoms, receiving an autism diagnosis,' Cutler pointed out. Other factors have also contributed to an increase in autism diagnoses over the years, including: improved screening and earlier diagnosis increased awareness and advocacy diagnostic substitution. According to him, 'this proactive approach has resulted in earlier identification of children with autism, including those with less pronounced symptoms, thereby increasing the number of diagnoses.' In short, autistic individuals with lower support needs who would not, historically, have been considered for an autism diagnosis, are now recognized thanks to improved screening for symptoms. 'Greater awareness among parents, educators, and healthcare providers has led to more children being evaluated and diagnosed,' the expert also told us. 'This is particularly evident in historically underdiagnosed groups, such as females and racial minorities, who are now more likely to be identified and receive appropriate services,' he added. In other words, historically marginalised groups and individuals assigned female at birth, who were previously less likely to be considered for an autism diagnosis, now encounter fewer obstacles in accessing neurodevelopmental assessments. 'In the past, children with milder developmental issues might have been diagnosed with intellectual disabilities or learning disorders,' explained Cutler. 'As understanding of autism has evolved, many of these children are now being diagnosed with ASD, a phenomenon known as diagnostic substitution,' he told us. In the press release, Kennedy suggested that autism 'has to be' caused by 'environmental exposure' to toxins. Doubling down on the autism epidemic claim, he also downplayed the role of genetic heritability in this neurodevelopmental condition. How much of this is really true, though? According to Cutler, 'genetic factors play a significant role in autism,' and several large studies have shown that, in many cases, autism seems to run in families. Nevertheless, Cutler did not dismiss the notion that environmental factors also play a role, pointing out that some 'studies suggest that environmental influences during pregnancy and early childhood may also contribute to the risk.' ' Factors such as parental age, exposure to certain chemicals, and complications during birth have been associated with an increased likelihood of developing autism,' he noted. In brief, while autism diagnoses may be on the rise, the reasons for this are most likely to be found in improvements to official diagnostic criteria, heightened awareness of the complex presentation of autism among medical professionals, and better advocacy and self-advocacy among populations that have traditionally had poorer access to healthcare. And while some environmental factors may play a role in autism, as they do in most aspects of health and development, there is no evidence right now that they are the main drivers when it comes to neurodiversity. 'The increase in autism diagnoses reflects advancements in understanding, diagnosing, and recognizing autism across diverse populations. While environmental and genetic factors are under investigation, the primary drivers of the apparent rise are changes in diagnostic criteria, enhanced screening, and heightened awareness.' — David Cutler, MD Autism Genetics Neurology / Neuroscience Environment / Water / Pollution
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
NIH scientists go public to denounce Trump's deep cuts in health research
In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. 'Dissent,' he said, 'is the very essence of science.' That commitment is being put to the test. On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, a frontal challenge to 'policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe'. It says: 'We dissent.' In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, more than 90 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter – and their careers on the line. They went public in the face of a 'culture of fear and suppression' they say Donald Trump's administration has spread through the federal civil service. 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,' the declaration says. Named for the agency's headquarters location in Maryland, the Bethesda Declaration details upheaval in the world's premier public health research institution over the course of mere months. It addresses the abrupt termination of 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12bn and some of the human costs that have resulted, such as cutting off medication regimens to participants in clinical trials or leaving them with unmonitored device implants. In one case, an NIH-supported study of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti had to be stopped, ceasing antibiotic treatment mid-course for patients. In a number of cases, trials that were mostly completed were rendered useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. 'Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,' it says, 'it wastes $4 million.' The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya but also sent to the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr and members of Congress who oversee the NIH, was endorsed by 250 anonymous employees of the agency besides the 92 who signed. Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Senator Angela Alsobrooks to talk about what is happening at the NIH. At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration. 'I want people to know how bad things are at NIH,' Norton told the Associated Press. The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya's own Great Barrington Declaration of October 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School. His declaration drew together like-minded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive Covid-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH. 'He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours,' said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration. As chief of the health systems and interventions research branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who have been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. But sudden cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. 'So much of it is gone – my work,' she said. The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because 'I don't want to be a collaborator' in the political manipulation of biomedical science. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. 'We have a saying in basic science,' he said. 'You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients. 'We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,' he added. But that will not happen, he said, if Trump's Republican administration prevails with its searing cuts to grants. The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes or the NIH. Employees from all 27 NIH institutes and centers gave their support to the declaration. Most who signed are intimately involved with evaluating and overseeing extramural research grants. The letter asserts that 'NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety' and that the agency is shirking commitments to trial participants who 'braved personal risk to give the incredible gift of biological samples, understanding that their generosity would fuel scientific discovery and improve health'. The Trump administration has gone at public health research on several fronts, both directly, as part of its broad effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion values throughout the bureaucracy, and as part of its drive to starve some universities of federal money. This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science', the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. A Signal group became the place for participants to sort through NIH chatter on Reddit, discern rumor from reality and offer mutual support. The declaration took shape in that group and as word spread neighbor to neighbor in NIH offices. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a linchpin in science. With that in place, he said in a statement in April, 'NIH scientists can be certain they are afforded the ability to engage in open, academic discourse as part of their official duties and in their personal capacities without risk of official interference, professional disadvantage or workplace retaliation.' Now it will be seen whether that is enough to protect those NIH employees challenging the Trump administration and him. 'There's a book I read to my kids, and it talks about how you can't be brave if you're not scared,' said Norton, who has three young children. 'I am so scared about doing this, but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only going to get harder to speak up. 'Maybe I'm putting my kids at risk by doing this,' she added. 'And I'm doing it anyway because I couldn't live with myself otherwise.'
