People who lived, worked or attended school
in areas impacted by dioxins produced at Monsanto’s Nitro plant can
register their interest in obtaining medical monitoring or property
clean up if they haven’t already done so.
The Monsanto class action settlement took
effect May 7. Beginning Tuesday, July 8, the court-appointed
administrator of the Nitro Class Action Settlement, Thomas V. Flaherty,
will have an office in Nitro through Oct. 31 to help individuals who
qualify obtain benefits for exposure to the dioxins, a chemical
by-product of the weed killers produced at the Nitro plant.
Dioxins have been linked to cancer, birth defects and learning disabilities as well as other serious health concerns.
To avoid going to trial, Monsanto agreed in
2012 to spend up to $84 million on a 30-year medical monitoring program —
$21 million for the initial testing, with another $63 million available
if dioxin levels warrant. They also agreed to spend another $9 million
on property clean up.
The claims office, located at 2303 1st
Avenue, Nitro, will be open July 8-Oct. 31 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Tuesday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
Flaherty and Class Counsel Stuart Calwell
said the settlement comes after eight years of litigation and appeals.
Now that the agreement is finalized, settlement money can be used for
“medical examinations and property cleanup services to people and
property affected the production of ‘dioxin’ at the Nitro Monsanto
plant,” they said.
To be eligible for medical testing,
individuals must have gone to school, worked or lived near Nitro in
Putnam or Kanawha counties full-time between January 1, 1948 and Sept.
30, 2010.taken from here
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