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31st Complaint Filed in Rohm and Haas/Dow Chemical Illinois Cancer Cluster Litigation

McCullom Lake, Illinois (April 29, 2010) - Jim Booth, whose MRI on his brain recently revealed a cancerous mass, today became the 31st plaintiff, filing a civil action against Rohm & Haas/Dow Chemical in what is believed to be the largest brain cancer cluster case pending in the United States.

Mr. Booth, a 60-year-old father of eight, joins the 30 other victims from the McCullom Lake community who have filed complaints against Philadelphia-based Rohm & Haas/Dow Chemical Advanced Materials Division, Rohm & Haas Chemicals - Ringwood plant, and Morton International. Morton was the original operator of the chemicals plant, which was acquired by Rohm & Haas when it bought Morton in 1999. It then became a Dow holding when Dow bought Rohm & Haas in 2008.

An engineer at a local publishing company, Mr. Booth is represented along with the other cancer-cluster victims by Philadelphia attorney Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq., of Layser & Freiwald, P.C., is alleging that that his brain cancer is a direct result of willful, negligent, and fraudulent actions by the defendants over the course of several decades.

Freiwald says that of the plaintiffs, 17, including Mr. Booth, have been diagnosed with malignant brain cancer; 13 have benign brain tumors (most requiring brain surgery and other treatment); and one required a liver transplant due to severe organ toxicity. Ten of the victims - ranging in age from 42 to 74 - have died since their complaints were filed.

It is alleged that Mr. Booth's recently-diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme was caused by repeated exposure to a toxic cocktail of hazardous chemical waste from the Ringwood plant that leached into the community's groundwater supply that fed private residential wells and wafted into its air. Vinyl Chloride, a known human carcinogen, is the chief chemical of concern in the air and groundwater contamination attributable to the plant's eight-acre, unlined waste lagoon, according to the complaint and state environmental records.

The plaintiffs reject the defense claim of coincidence with scientific and medical evidence - including that of a former Rohm & Haas epidemiologist. These assertions will be part of the plaintiff's case to be presented at the first of the cancer cluster trials (Franklin Delano and Joanne Branham vs. Rohm & Haas et al) that begins in a Philadelphia courtroom on June 7.

Pre-trial discovery has concluded that the ground, water, and air contamination could be traced to the plant's spilling, leaking, and dumping thousands of pounds of hazardous chemicals, including trichlorethene ("TCE"), 1,1- dichloroethylene ("1,1-DCE") in addition to vinyl chloride ("VC"). It is alleged in the Booth and other complaints that the men, women and children of the neighboring communities in McHenry County, located north of Chicago, innocently went about their daily lives, bathing, drinking, gardening, and cooking with well water poisoned by the plant's waste.

Modine Manufacturing, which operates a plant adjacent to the Rohm & Haas Ringwood facility, is not a defendant in the Booth complaint. It previously reached a confidential settlement in a related class-action and agreed to pay $1.4 million toward a medical monitoring program to the benefit of the victims and their McCullom Lake community. The deadline for obtaining medical-screening vouchers under the settlement is April 30.

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