BOMBSHELL: EPA Official Allegedly Admits CDC Didn't Test East Palestine Residents for Toxic Vinyl Chloride to Avoid "Mass Panic" After Norfolk Southern Derailment

"He said yes," resident Krissy Ferguson alleged to SC about EPA official acknowledging the reason CDC didn't test EP residents after NS detonated five cars of cancerous gas over EP.

Nearly seven months after the Norfolk Southern derailment, and intentional detonation of five cars of toxic vinyl chloride over East Palestine, a town resident alleged a top EPA official on-the-ground in East Palestine made a shocking admission about the first days after the February derailment and detonation.

While expressing her frustration to EPA official Mark Durno about the CDC not testing residents for vinyl chloride directly after the derailment—in the crucial 24-hour period the carcinogenic gas would be most likely to show up in one’s system—East Palestine resident Krissy Ferguson claimed Durno admitted the decision was intentional.

“But then I realized you only had a short window to do that [test residents for vinyl chloride] and you didn’t want to create mass panic,” Ferguson recounted telling Durno during an interview with Status Coup’s Louis DeAngelis in East Palestine (his fourth reporting trip to EP in six months).

According to Ferguson, Durno admitted the CDC didn’t immediately test residents’ for the cancerous gas to avoid widespread panic. “And he said yes,” Ferguson claimed.

The alleged admission by Durno is striking; vinyl chloride—an extremely toxic gas linked to rare forms of liver cancer, primary liver cancer, brain and lung cancer, lymphoma and leukemia—typically leaves the body 24 hours after exposure. This makes the first day or so after exposure the most critical time for testing.

If the CDC chose not to test residents to avoid “mass panic,” the agency presumably assumed a significant number of the village’s 4,700 residents would have tested positive for elevated levels of the toxin. As Status Coup has consistently covered, residents continue to suffer with a variety of serious health problems half a year after the derailment. Those health issues include, but are not limited to: dizziness, nausea, blood noses, headaches, sore throat, chest pains, burning eyes, numb lips and tongue, diarrhea, fatigue, rashes, sinus infections, chloracne, chemical taste in mouth, irregular menstrual cycles in women, increased anxiety, confusion, forgetfulness, and more.

The CDC did not respond to Status Coup’s request for comment about the alleged admission by Durno. EPA did not provide comment to Status Coup about the alleged admission by its official before the publishing of story.

Ferguson’s full description of her conversation with Durno below:

“You got the CDC, and they’re just A1, they did so good with COVID, they sat there telling us there’s no way to get it, nothing to do about vinyl chloride but we know how to treat the cancer…I begged Mark Durno to call the manufacturer of vinyl chloride to ask them, there has to be a protocol for when workers are exposed, and he didn't find it beneficial to do. And then later on as I talked to him I said ‘that really hurt me when you said that.’ But then I realized you only had a short window to do that [test residents for vinyl chloride] and you didn’t want to create mass panic—and he said yes. So the CDC prolonging this testing for us, everyone thinking that we just were a town of less than wealthy Appalachian people that would just go with anything that they were thinking. It wouldn’t have happened in a rich community, they would have had the treatment, but we were just cast aside over greed. It was to get that [the railroad track] back up and running; everyone’s life, four thousand some residents lives didn’t matter, and that was from our government right along with the railroad.”

Ferguson, along with her elderly mother and stepfather, has been displaced from her childhood home for months after the derailment. Her home, built in the 1930s, is right above Sulphur Run Creek—which became highly contaminated following the chemical shower released by Norfolk Southern.

The inside of her home reeks to the point it has made Ferguson’s lips and tongue tingle. Overall, she feels sick when in her home.

“Where am I going to live, am I going to be homeless?” Ferguson asked our Louis DeAngelis during an interview outside of her home in May. “I can’t come back to this, there's no way. Health issues; that’s still a major concern…the smell, different days, it’s colder today, but it’s right back [the smell] when it’s rainy and hot the most.”

As Status Coup previously reported, East Palestine residents who attempted to get tested for vinyl chloride exposure two months after the derailment were told by their healthcare providers the CDC was recommending against doctors testing residents for the toxin (the CDC did not respond to our repeated requests for comment on why the agency was recommending against testing).

Despite the obstacles to obtaining scripts for testing, Status Coup is aware of at least 10 residents whose urine tested positive for elevated levels of vinyl chloride months after the derailment. A chemist Status Coup spoke with assumed CDC chose not to test due to the nature of the gases path through the body.

“Assuming the CDC representative was acting in good faith, their recommendation to not perform testing was likely due to the very fast metabolism and excretion of VC following a single exposure,” a chemist, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Status Coup in response to the CDC urging healthcare providers not to test East Palestine residents for Vinyl Chloride. “I think this was due to an assumption [by CDC] that VC exposure [for residents] was just in the first week of Feb, in which case urine TDGA would not be detectable in April.”

But after learning that residents’ urine was detecting elevated levels of vinyl chloride months later, the chemist suggested there was likely chronic continual exposure in town.

“While not a smoking gun, these results strongly support the notion that East Palestine residents have been subject to subchronic exposure to VC and VC degradants from water, soil, and on/in surfaces/structures…clearly, the urine test indicates continued exposure since Feb. It would be helpful if urine TDGA was periodically tested to understand the trends in subchronic exposure.”

Despite residents continuing to test positive for elevated levels—leaving them to worry that cancer is coming down the pike—CDC has not conducted any testing program in East Palestine.

"You go back home, you sit and wait and hope to hell you don't get cancer and die,” an emotional Candy Kiehl, an East Palestine resident, told Louis during his most recent reporting trip to East Palestine."What do you do, you wait, because they say you wait. Oh we can help you with cancer but we can’t help you now? Fuck that, I’m over it! Help us now, that’s what our town needs.”

Durno’s alleged admission made to Ferguson about the CDC’s decision not to test residents isn’t the first time the EPA official has revealed stunning information about the East Palestine disaster.

In a June conversation with several residents, Durno, unaware he was being recorded, admitted that there was no evidence to support Norfolk Southern’s decision to detonate five cars of vinyl chloride over East Palestine.

“My question has always been why five [cars of vinyl chloride],” Mark Durno, told residents on June 6th. He also revealed that EPA officials saw no indications that, as Norfolk Southern claimed, five cars of toxic vinyl chloride were at risk of an imminent uncontrolled explosion.

“The way I understand it from our guys that were on site, is that four of them were not showing signs of stress yet,” Durno told residents (clip below). “One was and one was getting close. So why, why, why? And then we had two burn pits, so that tells me that, let’s say one could influence one or two others, then what about the other two?”

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