This story was published in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity, a non-profit newsroom that explores inequality.
bath. layer. bike. Kevin Hartley, Drew Wynn, and Joshua Atkins were working different jobs when they died less than 10 months apart, but the cause shortening their lives was the same: a chemical in paint thinner and other products sold in stores across the country.
In their grief and fear, the family vowed to do everything in their power to stop the methylene chloride from killing again.
But in the US, with its patchy history of poor worker and consumer protection, surprisingly few chemicals have suffered that fate. This is how methylene chloride became a serial killer, despite warnings about the dangers of its fumes long before Hartley, Wynn, and Atkins were born. Dozens, if not more, have been killed over the past decades without any agency intervention.
After an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity and requests from safety advocates, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally proposed to largely ban its use in paint removers.
It was January 2017, the last days of the Obama administration. Hartley died in April of that year, Wynn in October of that year, Atkins in February of the following year amid the Trump administration’s deregulation frenzy, and the Trump administration wants to drop the rules, not add them, especially at the Environmental Protection Agency. The methylene chloride proposal came to nothing.
However, 13 months after Atkins’ death, the Trump Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure, decided to stop retail sales of paint thinners containing methylene chloride. In April, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency proposed banning the chemical from all consumer products and most workplaces.
“We rarely do this in the US,” said Dr. Robert Harrison, clinical professor of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “These families are my heroes.”
Here’s how they beat the odds to get these results, and their advice if you’re on the same difficult path, whether the situation involves hazardous products, unsafe working conditions, pollution, or other hazards.
“Google everything,” said Brian Wynn, whose 31-year-old brother Drew bought a dichloromethane product to renovate his cold beer coffee shop in South Carolina. “And an appeal to the people.”
Here’s how he learned about the public inquiry published two years before his brother’s death, contacting experts and learning everything from where to buy groceries to why these deaths are so hard to trace. (Methylene chloride fumes are deadly when they build up indoors, and their ability to cause heart attacks looks like natural death if no one does toxicology tests.)
Advice from Kevin’s mother, Wendy Hartley: “Academic” is the key word in search. There may be a whole corpus of research just waiting for you. “This will help separate opinion from fact,” she wrote in an email.
Lauren Atkins, the mother of Joshua, 31, who died trying to fix the front fork of his BMX bike, spoke to UCSF Harrison several times. In February 2018, she found her son dead in a swoon next to a liter can of paint stripper.
Harrison’s knowledge of methylene chloride helped her translate her son’s toxicology and autopsy reports into a definitive cause of death. This clarity is a solid basis for action.
Often, chemical exposure delays harm to people, causing health effects that may not appear for years. Pollution can be a similar story. But academic research is still a good starting point if you want governments to do something about these dangers.
A key source of their success is that these families are connected to groups that are already working on chemical safety and are connected to each other.
For example, Lauren Atkins found a petition on Change.org about methylene chloride products from the advocacy group Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, now part of Toxin-Free Future, and signed it in honor of her recently deceased son. Brian Wynn quickly held out his hand.
Teamwork capitalizes on their strengths. In the absence of action by the EPA, these families don’t have to start over to force retailers to take products off their shelves: Safer Chemicals Healthy Families launched the “Think Store” campaign in response to such calls.
And they don’t have to figure out the inner workings of departmental rulemaking or lobbying on Capitol Hill themselves. Safer Chemicals Healthy Families and the Environmental Defense Fund have expertise in this area.
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“When you can put together a team like this… you have real power,” said Brian Wynn, noting the Natural Resources Defense Council, another group active on the issue.
Not everyone who is interested in this struggle will be able to play a public role in it. For example, immigrants without permanent legal status are at higher risk of workplace hazards, and lack of status can make it difficult or impossible for them to speak up.
Paradoxically, if these families focus all their attention on the Environmental Protection Agency, the agency may be inactive, especially during the Trump administration.
Through Mind the Store, they are calling on retailers to save lives by not selling paint strippers containing methylene chloride. Petitions and protests worked. One by one, companies like Home Depot and Walmart agreed to stop.
Through Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the Environmental Defense Fund, they are calling on members of Congress to take action. They headed to Washington with a family portrait. They spoke to reporters, and the news coverage fired them up even more.
Senators from South Carolina and one member of Congress wrote to Scott Pruitt, who was then administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Another member of Congress urged Pruitt to withdraw from discussing the issue during an April 2018 hearing. All this, according to Brian Wynn, helped the families arrange a meeting with Pruitt in May 2018.
“Security was shocked because no one went to see him,” Brian Wynn said. “It’s very much like meeting the great and mighty Oz.”
Along the way, families turned to the courts. They used social media to warn people not to put themselves in danger. Lauren Atkins went to the hardware store to see for herself if they had really done what they said they were doing to get methylene chloride products off the shelves. (Sometimes yes, sometimes no.)
If all this sounds tedious, you are not mistaken. But the families made it clear what would happen if they didn’t intervene.
“Nothing will be done,” said Lauren Atkins, “as nothing has been done before.”
Small wins multiply. One thing leads to another as the family does not give up. Often a long-term settlement is needed: federal rule-making is inherently slow.
It may take several years or more for the agency to complete the research needed to develop a rule. The proposal had to go through obstacles before it could be completed. However, any restrictions or new requirements will likely appear gradually over time.
What allowed the families to get the EPA’s partial ban so quickly was that the agency released the proposal before actually shelving it. But the EPA restriction did not take effect until 2.5 years after Kevin Hartley’s death. And they don’t cover use in the workplace – like 21-year-old Kevin fiddling with the bathroom at work.
However, the agency may make different decisions depending on who is in charge. The EPA’s latest proposal, scheduled for August 2024, would ban the use of methylene chloride in most workplaces, including bathtub refinishing.
“You must be patient. You have to be persistent,” says Lauren Atkins. “When it happens in someone’s life, especially when it’s your kids, you find it. It’s happening right now.”
Driving change is difficult. Seeking change because you or a loved one has been hurt can be more difficult, even if it can provide comfort that nothing else can.
Buckle up because this is going to be an emotional train wreck, Lauren Atkins warns. “People ask me all the time why I keep doing this, despite the fact that it is emotional and hard? My answer has always been and always will be: “So you don’t have to sit in my place. I don’t have to be where I am.”
“How do you feel when you lose half of yourself? Sometimes it seems to me that his heart stopped on the same day as mine, ”she said. “But since I don’t want anyone to go through this, I don’t want anyone to lose what Joshua lost, and that’s my goal. I’m ready to do whatever it takes.”
Brian Wynn, similarly motivated, offers a stress-relieving session to help you finish your marathon. The gym belongs to him. “You have to find a way to release your emotions,” he said.
Wendy Hartley believes that activism is healing in itself through the support of other families and the results they achieve together.
As an organ donor, her son had a direct impact on the lives of others. It’s great to see his legacy spread further across store shelves and government offices.
“Kevin has saved many more lives,” she wrote, “and will continue to save lives for years to come.”
If you’re pushing for change, it’s easy to assume that the lobbyists who pay to maintain the status quo will always win. But your life experience carries weight that cannot be bought.
“If you know how to tell your story, then it’s part of your life, then you can do it – and when you can tell that story, good luck to you, lobbyist,” said Brian Wayne. “We came with a passion and love that is unmatched.”
Wendy Hartley’s advice: “Don’t be afraid to show your emotions.” Talk about the impact on you and your family. “Show them a personal impact with photos.”
“Six years ago, if someone had said, ‘If you shout this loud enough, the government will listen to you,’ I would have laughed,” said Lauren Atkins. “Guess what? One vote can make a difference. I think it’s part of my son’s legacy.”
Jamie Smith Hopkins is a reporter for the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates inequality.