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About 40 years ago, a civil court trial in Cambria County dealt with whether a popular oven cleaner should be prohibited from being sold any longer due to injuries a woman allegedly suffered while using the product.
After a jury heard several days of testimony, including some that focused on whether the woman had followed directions fully regarding the product's use, the trial ended when the judge who was presiding over the proceeding issued a declaratory judgment, nullifying the opportunity for the jury to render a verdict.
Fast-forward to the weekend of Aug. 12-13, when the Mirror published an Associated Press article about the federal Environmental Protection Agency considering whether to launch a formal evaluation of risks posed by vinyl chloride, which the AP described as a cancer-causing chemical.
Vinyl chloride burned in a towering plume of toxic black smoke following the fiery train derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, near that state's border with Pennsylvania.
According to the National Cancer Institute, inhalation of vinyl chloride has been linked to liver cancer and other health problems. Its use was banned long ago in cosmetics, hair spray and numerous other personal products. However, vinyl chloride, which is a flammable gas, is used in the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride plastic, better known as PVC.
The chemical is found in plastic PVC pipes, as well as vinyl siding, packaging and a range of consumer goods and toys used by children and pets.
But if manufactured under correct safety measures and put to use using proper safety procedures and precautions, is its continued use really as bad as some groups proclaim? Can it and should it continue to survive like that oven cleaner of 40 years ago?
Perhaps, but allow what might happen over the next several months to play out and hopefully provide guidance for the future. For now, no one should fall victim to undue panic built upon mere conjecture, rather than facts.
That "what might happen over the next several months" is the start of a review of risks posed by a handful of chemicals used for plastic production. Conducting the risks review will be the federal Environmental Protection Agency in an evaluation process involving possibly three years.
Environmental and public health activists have cheered the EPA's plan, but it is premature for them to anticipate that the eventual ruling will be in their favor.
"That (Feb. 3) accident was a chilling warning that we must act now to ban petro-chemicals like vinyl chloride, and keep communities safe from known carcinogens," said Heather McTeer Toney, a former regional EPA administrator who leads a group called Beyond Petro-chemicals.
However, better overall safety protocols, combined with stricter specific rules for transporting such substances, might produce virtually the same outcomes as what Heather Toney and others advocate.
Understandably, the Vinyl Institute, a trade group that represents manufacturers, is working to remind the public that vinyl chloride is safely manufactured in the U.S, and efforts to ban it ignore decades of credible science.
Many East Palestine residents remain deeply concerned about possible health effects stemming from the February derailment and subsequent vinyl chloride release that was necessary to prevent an explosion.
For those people, peace of mind would be tantamount to riches, but those "riches" don't seem destined to arrive anytime soon.