Rich Buttery Badness: The Case of Popcorn Workers’ Lung and the $100 Million Purse

Black lung was kid’s stuff. Have some trouble breathing, compounded likelihood of lung cancer if a smoker—nothing compared to asbestosis. Those sharp little asbestos fibers do a number cutting up the alveoli (air sacs) in your lungs. That’s the stuff of nightmares. But there’s a new kid in town stirring up trouble, a new occupational lung disease ready to give asbestosis a run for its money.

Popcorn lung. Sure, its ring name leaves something to be desired but its medical name of bronchiolitis obliterans is awfully sinister if you know a little Latin. It’s a rare disease limited pretty much to people exposed to diacetyl, a chemical that in sufficient quantities tastes buttery and is used as artificial butter in microwave popcorn.

The chemical's like an acid, causing a condition similar to scabbing an open wound in the sufferer's lungs, scar tissue replacing healthy tissue until the person can’t breathe properly. Like asbestosis, the effects are irreversible. No cure. Better luck next life. Removing the lung and replacing it with a transplant the only cure. And while you’re waiting for a lung, you can have an iron one breathe for you, attended by friendly RNs. Like we were living in a future. Maybe one where industry cares about it workers.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking (I hear it on the train and at airports and it turns my stomach): “A few eggs to make an omelet. People get hurt at work all the time. Spilled milk. What about me? My family? My health?”

Well, ignoble reader, EPA says it’s safe for consumers (like aspartame). Feel free to eat handfuls and show your stubborn support for an unnecessary product (before Washington, D.C. comes and takes away another of your doggone, god-given, private citizen rights), but I’m going to go back (to the future? both seem like how 50s sci-fi would depict popcorn making in the year 2020) to the Real Genius or, if I can still find it, my old R2D2-style set-up.

Bronchiolitis obliterans has affected (perhaps the nicest way of putting it) microwave-popcorn workers in Missouri, Iowa, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, California, and Maryland.

CA will again lead the safe way (acceptable benzene levels in beverages, lead warnings, etc.), most likely banning the production of chemical in the Golden State in upcoming months and meanwhile The Governator’s (though he’ll always be Dr. Alex Hesse to me) pushing for a public awareness campaign--all this while OSHA’s still deciding what to do (it’s known about the dangers since 2001, so we could expect something in the next six years?).

Sometimes it takes a $100 million in damages (since blue collar workers turning blue from lung obliteration isn’t enough) to get legislators into action.

Envy all people, let none annoy thee.