Ohio man's lungs crippled by vapors at popcorn plant, doctors say By Sara Shipley, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
'They said it was safe. I thought it was safe,' Campbell said wearily, occasionally hacking into a handkerchief. 'It's a food plant; what could be dangerous?'
Doctors say that Campbell's lungs are crippled from breathing butter flavoring vapors at a microwave popcorn factory in nearby Marion, Ohio. He worked for two years as a flavoring mixer at the ConAgra Foods plant, measuring and dumping butter-flavored powders and pastes into heated vats of soybean oil.
Company officials assured employees that the plant was safe in 2001, after outbreaks of lung disease had been reported among workers at a microwave popcorn plant in Jasper, Mo., Campbell said. ConAgra still says the plant was safe then, and continues to be so.
Now totally disabled, Campbell is one of 19 plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against three companies who made butter flavorings used at the Marion plant.