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First of all we want to thank everyone for being here today.
We want to introduce Warren Brown
who most of you know. My name is Alan Mortensen. I'm from the law firm
Dewsnup, King & Olsen and we have Charles Boyk from the Boyk Law Firm in
Toledo who we'll be introducing a little bit later.
We're gonna proceed in this
in this format for purposes of the press conference.
We're going to have Warren speak. He has some words to say.
I'm gonna make some comments and then
turn the time over to Charles and then we will take questions
as you have them. So Warren...
Thank you Alan and thanks to everybody for attending this afternoon.
From the outset I want everyone gathered here
to understand that comments I'm about to make come from my personal
observations. This is not to state that there are others
who may hold the same opinion in this room but I speak this afternoon
as a single voice. Noting that the closing comments however
may be more appropriately made in a collective fashion. Many of our media friends have sought details,
comments and many dissertations for me and my family over the past
now almost four years in which Alexa has resided
in heaven. You all know
or should know that Alexa along with several other young people
bore the life ending brunt of the effects of the Clyde childhood cancer cluster.
Along with these extreme losses
there were many other young persons whose lives were also turned upside down
and who now live in fear of daily on a daily basis
wondering if the cancer that ravaged them
will return. I've been on a few occasions reticent to offer much to you
but some happenings in recent past have given cause for me to evaluate
why it is that I possibly and why it is that we collectively
may have hesitated on making comments and being more vocal.
Personally, I've spent many sleepless nights
pondering why it was that children developed cancer and why some of them died here
in a community that for all intensive purposes is fairly pristine.
It has been a constant thought and theme in the life of my family
and not a day that has gone by that each one of us continues to question and to
look for answers. The actions over the past six years
that some have taken on individually and more recently as a group have been
rooted in science.
Our collective group has not entered into this matter lightly.
Our hand though recently has been forced by several individuals
whose motivation appears to be the securing of...and the almighty
dollar.
To assuage the loss they have suffered. They cannot stand before you today and
claim that they have their own science backing up the filing
of their lawsuit. They are building their case
upon the results and efforts of a few other persons.
My family included, who would just
not allow the powers that be to sell us some nebulous
idea that this cancer cluster was just a happenstance event.
That they have filed suit prematurely
and opportunistically. In conclusion and hoping that a state correctly
how our group feels as a whole. We
those who have lost children and those
again whose children wake up everyday wondering when cancer will revisit them
want only one real
"conclusion" to come from this effort.
We want the truth!
We want to know why that apparently healthy young person's
who pursuant to statistical information should have remained healthy for decades
developed cancer with several of those
passing way as a result. If the truth in fact comes in the form of ten million
dollars
or ten dollars it does not matter. We want to know why,
who and what caused a
"statistical anomaly" as proffered by the Ohio Department of Health.
We want the truth!
and unlike the Tom Cruise character in "A Few Good Men"
we can handle the truth!
I want to thank Warren
for his comments this afternoon and for his preparation
in his thoughts and his feelings. He along with his wife,
Steve Keller his son and his daughter-in-law
and wife, the (names)
...and several other families
that have been dogged in their pursuit for
what has caused this childhood cancer cluster. As you know
or most of you know as part of this pursuit for the truth the
families undertook the task of
doing their own testing to try to find a common environmental
factor that may have led to their children's cancers, deaths and illnesses.
Testing was done a few weeks in some homes
in the homes of the victims and in some other homes
here in Clyde. We had promised
to share the results with the community at large and that is the purpose that we called this news
conference.
The testing samples were sent to the American West Laboratories in Salt Lake
City, Utah.
I'm here to report that the results have yielded some significant
and important information. However, the full interpretation of this
information is yet unclear. To protect the community at large
from reacting to data that has not been fully analyzed
by experts to protect homeowners from any disinformation
or false conclusions that would impact their homes and because
the lawsuit that's been filed a couple weeks ago and the unintended
impact that this information may have upon that case,
we're going to follow up our
testing by doing three things. First, we are going to
provide the data to the U.S. and Ohio EPAs and
ask that they verify it and that they
they do their own testing individually.
So that they can give the proper instruction to the community
at large as to the significance of it.
It's not, we don't
believe it's our position at this point in time
to make raw conclusions or rush to judgement.
Based on data that we need a team of experts
to analyze and then we want the EPA
both at the Ohio level and at the Federal level to analyze themselves.
So we will be sending a formal request in letter form to the acting
director
of the EPA (name) and
asking him to have the EPA come in and
do similar types of testing in other homes in the
community so that these results can be
further analyzed. We are going to again invite
the new director of the EPA to come out
and fulfill the promise that was made by Lisa Jackson to come to Clyde
and to see the mosaic that's been painted here
here in this in this community.
I think by taking one segment,
of one piece of information and analyzing it separate from the big picture
the big picture has been lost and I want the
families the we represent I want the new director to come out,
go to all the sites, read the reports
and also read and analyze our data.
We have uh we're in
we are in the course
of hiring a team of chemists of epidemiologists and toxicologists
who will assist us in interrupting the significance
of the data that was obtained by our testing.
I can announce
that nothing of significance was found in the Clyde water treatment
plant and I think that's good news for everybody. We appreciative of
Clyde city. They have been a very good citizen
and caretaker of their citizens by allowing us
to do that testing...a pleasure to work with. So we are
we are pleased to announce that
as some of you know a lawsuit was filed recently in Fremont, Ohio by the
law firm (name) in Sandusky County.
...and clients have no involvement
in what we've done with our law firm Dewsnup, King & Olsen and
the families that we represent. The (name) firm
as far as I know has had no involvement, well they had no involvement, with
the testing and as far as I know they have no
access to the the raw data that we obtained.
It's
the cancer cluster families understanding that the testing has not been
finished
or even commenced at the Whirlpool Park and everyone
is is a extremely curious
for that that testing to occur has is
our families and many of the families that live out
out by the park.
Those results may impact them differently than the results that we found
in our dust testing and so we will be doing further analysis
on that also as we proceed forward. But I can tell you that
many members of
my client group, of our client group, feel that
some people or entities were
prematurely named. Members of our community
without any basis to name them and that's what
one of the reasons we are proceeding very cautiously
with the raw data that we do have. We do not want
to rush to judgement and to harm anybody
because our families know what it's like to be harmed
and to suffer needlessly. I'd like
turn the tide over to Charles Boyk of the Boyk Law Firm in Toledo.
Mr. Boyk is a very talented and skilled and
experienced victims rights advocate. He's agreed to act as co-council
here in Ohio for the families
we represent and I'm very grateful for his acceptance
of in incoming on board. He brings
great expertise in the Ohio court systems.
Both in state and federal and in advocating for victims.
He's obtained several significant results for his clients.
Both in verdict and in settlements
and he is a man who has given a lot back to the community.
If uh you go to his web page
he does incredible amounts of community service
and it's not it's not all about
the law and the profession. It's about the community and that's
what uh what got me interested
in talking to him in the first place. As part of his charitable efforts
that includes a lot of fundraising for several
cancer victims and again I think he is to be commended for
all that he has given to Northwest Ohio.
From a professional and from a charitable stand point.
So I'll turn the time over to Charles.
I would like to thank Alan and
the families for allowing me to get involved
in this case. I think I've been, like a lot of you, the last 6 or 7 years
I've read the newspapers, I've watched the stories on
TV and I've wondered you know what's this
mystery all about and like most attorneys and most people
I was just a consumer. I just watched and really did
nothing about this, about this horrible tragedy and then I started reading in the paper
about
Alan and uh what he was doing to help these families
and I hadn't heard of him but I was kind of intrigued by the situation
and then when he contacted me
I was interested and I started trying to do some research on Alan.
One of my good friends is a top-flight
Utah personal injury attorney. I mentioned Alan's name
to him and he indicated that the largest case that he's ever had
involved him working with Alan's firm
assisting him and what I found out by doing my due diligence on Alan is
his firm is considered the top firm in Utah
for handling toxic tort and all sorts of
personal injury cases. But not only is it the top personal injury firm in
Utah but it has national verdicts,
national toxic tort cases and actually international
cases that they've been involved in. So I was really impressed at his commitment
and his expertise and he comes across as a nice
low-key individual but if you go to this web page,
you talk to people, this is a guy that's
in the national media as a national player
and I'm really thrilled to have the opportunity to try to assist him
and assist the families on trying to find
and solve this mystery. Thank you.