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“He’d had a check-up right before he was in charge of the testing. Healthy as could be. A year and a half later, he got sick. Really sick. Ninety days after that, he was dead. Cancer, obviously.”
“Again, I am really sorry to hear that. But it just seems unlikely that the chemicals were to blame. I mean from what I know, it takes years of exposure to weed killers to develop cancer from them.”
“The old formula, yeah,” he agreed. “That has been the case. But this new formula isn’t even on the market yet.”
I swear the coffee shop was getting darker and darker as he spoke. And, suddenly, I wasn’t quite as repelled by his intensity as I was drawn to it, a bit hypnotized by it.
I needed to know more.
“What is different then? I know everyone is cutting down on the glyphosate because of the sicknesses and lawsuits…”
“Yeah. But what they aren’t telling you is that they are doubling down on the inactive ingredients. Namely, POAEs. Amongst other things. I think you’re starting to get it.”
I was, too.
Because while I was no expert in the matter yet, I did know enough about it to know that inactive ingredients didn’t require risk assessment the same way that active ones did. At least not in the U.S.
“Starting to,” I agreed.
“See, they cut down on the glyphosate, that’s true. But most experts agree that inactive ingredients, like the extra POAEs–and who-knew what else–they added in, can impact the active ingredients in a synergistic way. And my father was around this shit day in and day out for over a fucking year. You can’t sit there and tell me a perfectly healthy man with no family history of cancer who ate right and exercised and took amazing care of himself dropping dead after working with these new chemicals is a coincidence.”
Maybe I was going to need to be fitted for a tin hat eventually as well, but I really couldn’t see any other possible reasoning either.
Sure, cancer was a cruel and indiscriminate disease. It struck down the sick and the healthy. It was natural to seek reasons for it, even become paranoid about it.
That said, there often could be a reason for it.
That was why people who inhaled toxic substances over a long period of time had it in their lungs.
Sometimes you weren’t paranoid.
Sometimes there really was a conspiracy.
“This shit is hitting the market in less than six months. The way they are gearing up to market it as a completely safe alternative to their competitors’ shit is going to make them a fortune. And people are going to die.”
If he was right, yes, they were going to.
And it would take years before everyone started connecting the dots, reached out to other victims, figured out the cause.
Meanwhile, the pockets of everyone at Blairtown Chem would get weighted down.
It was unconscionable.
It was why I was going into the career path I was. To try to make the world a greener and safer place.
If what Rylan was saying was true, I couldn’t just go on and act like it wasn’t happening.
“There’s proof of it, I’m sure. Near the end, my father started doing his own tests, started connecting the dots. He even sent samples out to some independent labs for testing. Then he sent them the results. They have to have that information somewhere. And if they are sitting on it, if they know it was unsafe, then they are fucking criminals.”
“He needed you,” Lincoln said, cutting through the haze of my memories. “He obviously couldn’t get in there, and look for the information. So he targeted you. He put you at risk.”
“You’re making him out to be a bit of a villain here.”
“People who knowingly put other people at risk are villains, Gem.”
“He didn’t know I was at risk. I mean… not really. He couldn’t predict that they would suspect me. And then follow me.”
“I think you are painting him as more naive than he was. He knew it was risky. He knew that if these people were willing to overlook something this potentially explosive just to make money, then trying to get rid of you was not a big deal.”
Maybe there was some truth in that.
And maybe I didn’t want to think terrible things about someone who had lost so much, who was on a very noble mission.
“What was his plan exactly? Is he going to the police with the information? Because you do know you are going to be investigated if this happens. Whistleblowers can get away with it sometimes if the issue is big enough. But not always.”
I had maybe learned as much. Paranoia over the past several weeks had taken me to the deep ends of the internet. Where all the conspiracy theories lived. Lincoln was right. For every whistleblower who did get commended, who did take down the bad guys, there were at least three others who ended up dead or in jail.
