It was not until many years after her miscarriages that Jane de la Fosse made a connection with her time at the DuPont factory in Dordrecht. She joined the lawsuit against the chemical giant, a move for which she is being looked at with the neck in Dordrecht.
Can one phone call turn your life upside down? Jane de la Fosse knows the answer.
It is spring 2016 when her cell phone rings. Jane is in the car to Utrecht to visit a fair for beauticians. It turns out to be a journalist from the TV show One today. Whether it’s true that Jane has had three miscarriages. And if she realizes that maybe this is because of her work at DuPont.
That message hits hard. For Jane, working at the American chemical company was a blessing when she first arrived in the Netherlands. Indonesia-born Jane (60) met her husband Victor in 1988 during a holiday in the Netherlands. Three months later, the couple married and Jane emigrated. She takes her 9-year-old son, whom she gave birth to as a teenager. The family will live in Dordrecht.
In no time, Jane is offered a job at DuPont. The American chemical giant is looking for employees for the local factory. Lycra has been produced there since 1964, an elastic synthetic fiber from which all kinds of clothing are made, such as stockings, lingerie or cycling shorts.
DuPont then enjoys a spotless image in Dordrecht. With two factories in the city, almost every resident of Dordrecht knows someone who works there. Jane hears rumbling stories from her father-in-law, who has been working for the company satisfactorily for years.
In the summer of 1989 Jane enters the service. The work was ‘not very complicated’, she recalls: together with about sixty colleagues she carries out inspections on the newly produced yarn. Hundreds of yarn pass through her hands every day. With a few exceptions, all of her colleagues were women, aged 16 to 55. Schoolchildren and students with holiday work also walked around. “We had a good time together.”
It also paid excellent. ‘I was able to buy our house on my own, while you normally need two salaries for that.’ In addition, she received stock options and a generous allowance on holidays.
‘At the time you had blind faith in your employer’
The fact that she worked at a chemical company initially led to doubts. For example, there was an indefinable smell on the work floor, sharp and pungent. And employees had to urinate into a tube at irregular times. Still, that didn’t ring alarm bells, says Jane. ‘People are now more assertive: you can do your own research with the internet. At the time, you had blind faith in your employer.’
The company also radiated that safety was a priority. Jane: ‘I feel like we were working for the safest company in the Netherlands. There was a big sign in front of the factory: so many days without accidents. And inside there were signs everywhere with warnings and instructions: hold on to the railing, put on the right shoes.’
The De la Fosse family begins to expand the family in 1991. Because there is no success, the couple visits the doctor. Jane’s fallopian tubes appear to be stuck there. “They said: a normal pregnancy is not possible.” Jane can’t believe it at first: she had no trouble giving birth with her son.
The couple embarks on fertility treatments, in the form of IVF. Victor injects hormones daily to promote egg production. Her eggs are then removed after a few weeks. These are cultured into embryos in the hospital with Victor’s sperm and reapplied vaginally. Especially the removal of the eggs is very helpful. “The womb is a delicate place. And then something is plucked internally from the body. Ten times more painful than childbirth.’
In total, seven eggs are removed. An egg is replaced more than ten times. The harvest is meager. Most eggs are shed. Jane does get pregnant three times, but has just as many miscarriages. One of those times, the fetus does not die until after thirteen weeks. Then you’re out of the danger zone.’
The miscarriages take their toll. Jane: ‘Victor and I didn’t know each other long before we got married. We didn’t have a smooth run in which we lived together and discovered each other. We spent years trying to have children instead of building the relationship.’
Husband Victor: ‘I can remember sitting at home after the second miscarriage. And Jane said, I can’t make you happy. That cut through my soul.’ Jane: ‘I knew Victor wouldn’t leave me. But I could see that he was saddened by the arduous procedure. That made me feel guilty. There was nothing wrong with his sperm.’
Meanwhile, Jane continues to work at DuPont. In 1997 she became pregnant after all, after which a daughter was born nine months later. A year after the pregnancy, eggs are inserted again, Jane becomes pregnant with twins. Jane: ‘I was so happy; thanked God for taking care of me.’ They took for granted that one of the youngest children was subsequently born with cerebral palsy, a motor disorder.
The De la Fosse family ends up in calm waters. The children are growing up. Jane becomes her own boss when she is made redundant in 2001 and leaves DuPont. She starts a beauty salon in her garage.
‘The penny fell’
Until in 2016 the telephone rings and that peace is rudely disturbed. One today had spoken to dozens of female DuPont employees who had developed serious health problems. They had stillborn babies, miscarriages, cervical cancer or children with abnormalities. The cause is said to be a toxic solvent used in the manufacturing process, DMAc, in the same factory where Jane had worked for over a decade.
First there was disbelief. Not long after, the anger flared. ‘The penny dropped. In the 1990s, I spoke to colleagues who were having problems having a child. I saw no connection. But now it is clear that we were working with a toxin.’
Since the 1960s, there have been concerns about the harmful effects of the poison, according to data from the RIVM. From the 1980s, the evidence piled up faster and faster, emeritus professor of toxicology Martin van den Berg (Utrecht University) said earlier. de Volkskrant. ‘It was absolutely clear then that it is dangerous for pregnant women or women who want to become pregnant. It even appears from studies by DuPont itself.’
Employees were not told about these health risks. Jane: ‘If I had known that, I would not have come to work there. I’m not risking my future for DuPont. Absolutely not. And that applies to everyone who had a wish to have children.’
After the disclosure, the Public Prosecution Service decides to prosecute the chemical company. That turned out to be a dead end last year: the judiciary cannot prove that the DMAc concentration in the factory was too high. The factory was sold in 2004 and demolished in 2006. The trade union FNV then starts a civil lawsuit on behalf of fifteen former employees. In this, DuPont must demonstrate that it has taken good care of its employees.
Jane has no immediate plans to join. ‘I have relatively healthy children, I really didn’t want to bring up that period anymore. But I do it because they’ve been fooling us all this time. I may have been cured eventually, because I got pregnant anyway. But there are women who never had a child again.’ Victor also wonders if the poison hasn’t caused more harm. Victor: ‘My youngest daughter has had a condition since she was born. Could there be a connection there?’
‘That laconic attitude’
In May she will be in court together with fifteen other former employees. They come across four adamant lawyers and company representatives. DuPont acknowledges that the substance is harmful, but downplays the health damage. Employees would have received too low amounts. Jane isn’t surprised about that. “This is so recognizable, a typical DuPont mentality. That nonchalance, that laconic attitude.’
Jane wants to use her right to speak in court, but once behind the podium she bursts into sobbing. Her husband continues, with restrained anger. Victor: ‘You say you care about us, but the lawyers are fighting a semantic battle over correlation here. Isn’t there an ounce of humanity that says: we’re a multi-billion dollar company, we settle? Or does DuPont say: we have so many resources, we have such a long breath, we open a can of renowned lawyers? I don’t care about money. It’s about recognizing your role.’
In an interim judgment in July, the judge holds chemical company DuPont legally liable for health damage suffered by former employees. The employees were exposed to a ‘dangerous amount’ of poison. Factory workers were poorly protected and insufficiently warned about possible fertility problems.
It is the first legal victory for the former employees, but in Dordrecht the women are now being looked at with the neck. Jane: ‘That’s been happening since we announced the lawsuit. “You ended up having children, didn’t you?” someone said. They are skeptical and see us as blackmailers. Maybe because they still work for the company themselves. Or know someone who works there. I had hoped that would change. The judge has now made a ruling. It is independent. But that’s not true. Don’t get anything in your head, said a former colleague a day after the verdict. “DuPont is almost bankrupt.”
‘I want a sincere apology’
The fifteen former employees jointly demand more than one million euros. But Jane doesn’t think that’s the most important thing. ‘I don’t really want money, I want recognition. I want DuPont to admit publicly that they were wrong. That they didn’t tell you all about the dangers of the poison. And I want a sincere apology. We do not refuse compensation, but some suffering cannot be expressed in money.’
Victor: ‘I sometimes make mistakes with customers in my work. Sometimes very expensive. Then I go to the customer and I say: I did this wrong. That costs me wet armpits, lead in my shoes. But it fits. They should be ashamed that a judge has to be involved before they repent.’
The end of the lawsuit is not yet in sight. DuPont can still appeal the interlocutory judgment. A decision on this will be made in the coming weeks. In a response, DuPont writes that she is committed to the suffering of her former employee. ‘Employee health was and is one of DuPont’s core values.’ If the company does not object, former employees will still have to prove that their health problems were caused by DMAc. That could take years.
Even if the company is ordered to pay damages, Jane’s DuPont period will never be completely over. ‘I am now finding out what the effect of the toxin has been on my pregnancy. But I don’t know what will happen next, what else the material has done to my body. Some colleagues have died of cancer. That’s in my head.’