Part 3. Wamsley is After developing rectal cancer and having surgery to treat it in , he walks slowly and gets up gingerly from the bench in his small backyard. His voice, which has a gentle Appalachian lilt, is still animated, though, especially when he talks about his happier days. There were many. While Wamsley knew plenty of people in Parkersburg, West Virginia, who struggled to stay employed, he made an enviable wage for almost four decades at the DuPont plant here.
The company was generous, helping him pay for college courses and training him to become a lab analyst in the Teflon division. He enjoyed the work, particularly the precision and care it required. For years, he measured levels of a chemical called C8 in various products. A fine powder, possibly C8, dusted the laboratory drawers and floated in the hazy lab air.
Wash your hands [with it], your face, take a bath. Today Wamsley suffers from ulcerative colitis, a bowel condition that causes him sudden bouts of diarrhea.
The disease also can β and his case, did β lead to rectal cancer. Between the surgery, which left him reliant on plastic pouches that collect his waste outside his body and have to be changed regularly, and his ongoing digestive problems, Wamsley finds it difficult to be away from his home for long.
Did they lie? Several blockbuster discoveries, including nylon, Lycra, and Tyvek, helped transform the E. Perhaps no product is as responsible for its dominance as Teflon, which was introduced in , and for more than 60 years C8 was an essential ingredient of Teflon.
