In the U.S., chlordecone, commercialized under the brand name "Kepone", was produced byAllied Signal Company and LifeSciences Product Company inHopewell, Virginia. The improper handling and dumping of the substance (including the waste materials generated in its manufacturing process) into the nearbyJames River (U.S.) in the 1960s and 1970s drew national attention to its toxic effects on humans and wildlife. After two physicians, Dr. Yi-nan Chou and Dr. Robert S. Jackson of the Virginia Health Department, notified the Centers for Disease Control that employees of the company had been found to have toxic chemical poisoning, LifeSciences voluntarily closed its plant on 4 July 1975, and cleanup of the contamination began and a 100-mile section of the James River was closed to fishing while state health officials looked for other persons who might have been injured.[6] At least 29 people in the area were hospitalized as a result of their exposure to Kepone.[6]
The product is made in aDiels-Alder reaction shared with pesticides likechlordane andendosulfan.[3] Chlordecone is cited amongst a handful of other noxious substances as the driver forGerald Ford's approval of theToxic Substances Control Act in 1976, a United States regulatory bill that was controversial due to the financial burden it put on chemical production companies to get approval for new compounds.[7]
In the US, Chlordecone was not federally regulated until after the Hopewell disaster, in which 29 factory workers were hospitalized with various ailments, includingneurological.[8]
In France it was banned on the mainland only, in 1993.[9]
On 14 March 2024, theFrench National Assembly assumed responsibility for the chlordecone contamination affecting populations in Martinique and Guadeloupe.[10]
Chlordecone can accumulate in the liver and the distribution in the human body is regulated by binding of the pollutant or its metabolites tolipoproteins likeLDL andHDL.[11] The LC50 (LC = lethal concentration) is 35 μg/ L forEtroplus maculatus,[12] 22–95 μg/kg forblue gill andtrout. Chlordeconebioaccumulates in animals by factors up to a million-fold.
Due to the pollution risks, many fishermen, marinas, seafood businesses, and restaurants, along with their employees along the river suffered economic losses. In 1981, a large group of these entities suedAllied Chemical in federal district court (Eastern District of Virginia), claiming special economic damages from Allied's negligent damage to the fish and wildlife.[18] In a case that sometimes appears in law school courses on Remedies, the court rejected the traditional "economic-loss rule", which requires physical impact causing personal injury or property damage to receive economic damages, and instead allowed a limited group of the plaintiffs—the fishing boat owners, the marinas, and the bait and tackle shops—to recover economic damages from Allied Chemical.
The French islands ofMartinique andGuadeloupe are heavily contaminated with chlordecone,[19] following years of its massive and unrestricted use on banana plantations: primarily againstCosmopolites sordidus.[20][21] Despite a 1990 ban on the substance in mainland France, the economically powerful banana planters lobbied intensively to obtain a waiver to keep using Kepone until 1993. They argued that no alternative pesticide was available, which has since been disputed. After the 1993 ban, the banana planters were discreetly granted derogations to use their remaining stocks, and a 2005 report prepared by the French National Assembly states that after the 1993 ban was imposed, the chemical was illegally imported to the islands under the name Curlone, and continued to be used for many years.[9] Since 2003, local authorities in the two islands have restricted the cultivation of various food crops because thesoil is badly contaminated by chlordecone. A 2018 large-scale study by the French public health agency,Santé publique France, shows that 95% of the inhabitants of Guadeloupe and 92% of those of Martinique are contaminated by the chemical.[22] Guadeloupe has one of the highestprostate cancer diagnosis rates in the world.[23]
^Survey of Industrial Chemistry by Philip J. Chenier (2002), p. 484.
^ab"Two young doctors stopped the spread of Kepone poisoning", by Bill McAllister, L.A. Times-Washington Post Service, reprinted inCourier-Journal (Louisville KY), 5 January 1976, p. 1
^Brureau, L.; Emeville, E.; Ferdinand, S.; Thome, J.; Romana, M.; Blanchet, P.; Multigner, L. (2015). "Exposition au chlordécone et cancer de la prostate. Interactions avec les gènes codants pour les œstrogènes".Progrès en Urologie.25 (13): 755.doi:10.1016/j.purol.2015.08.080.PMID26544275.
^Durimel A.; et al. (2013). "pH dependence of chlordecone adsorption on activated carbons and role of adsorbent physico-chemical properties".Chemical Engineering Journal.229:239–349.Bibcode:2013ChEnJ.229..239D.doi:10.1016/j.cej.2013.03.036.
