Coal Tar

Mothers in two small American towns wanted answers. What caused their child to become a victim of cancer? Taylorville, Illinois and Morgan City, Louisiana each had a mystery to solve--an epidemic of a rare childhood cancer called neuroblastoma.But politically connected corporations, along with state health officials, did everything they could to steer them away from the truth. A David versus Goliath battle for justice. Told by a private investigator, Bill Clutter, this is the story of his investigation. As he looked deeper into the cases, the link between the two communities soon became clear: exposure to a byproduct of coal gasification called coal tar. Abandoned nearly a 100 years ago, they polluted nearly every town and city in America with coal tar. An epic legal battle, the case against Central Illinois Public Service Company (CIPS) became a landmark Illinois Supreme Court decision. Coal Tar: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing America's Children exposes how powerful corporate polluters infected our political system with another form of cancer, one that is killing democracy. The most potent carcinogen known to science-coal tar is still being applied to parking lots and pavements all over America! But there is a bright side to this story. A group of middle-school students recently used the CIPS case in their campaign to ban coal tar sealants. Coming together in the chamber where our Founding Fathers once stood, undaunted by the immense improbability of what they sought to accomplish, they defeated the greed of a powerful corporate lobby.