Hundreds of new lawsuits have been filed against Sterigenics alleging that health problems including cancer and miscarriages were caused by ethylene oxide emissions from the Willowbrook facility, bringing the total number of cases filed in Cook County against the sterilization company to more than 700.

This week, more than 600 individual lawsuits were filed on behalf of people who lived and worked near Sterigenics, according to Romanucci & Blandin, one of the law firms filing the cases. The new lawsuits follow the approximately 75 filed previously.

Sterigenics has known of ethylene oxide’s carcinogenic effects since at least 1984, one of the complaints alleges. “Notwithstanding, Defendants chose to operate their business and emit EtO in a densely populated area full of children, houses, parks, schools, and business,” the filing reads.

Defendants in the lawsuits include Sterigenics U.S. LLC, Sotera Health, Griffith Foods, private equity firm GTCR LLC and two managers.

“Sterigenics empathizes with anyone battling cancer, but we are confident that operations at our Willowbrook facility are not responsible for causing the illnesses alleged in any lawsuit,” a spokesman for the company said in a statement responding to inquiries about the lawsuits. “As we have stated previously, we intend to vigorously defend against the plaintiffs’ unfounded and meritless claims.”

Patrick Salvi II of Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard, another firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement that the “magnitude of the number of individual cases filed shows the devastating impact Sterigenics had on the Willowbrook community.”

“But this is not about a large number of lawsuits, this is about individual people — each of whom has suffered physical, emotional and financial hardship and, in too many cases, even death,” Salvi said. “They each deserve to have justice served.”

In January, attorneys said more lawsuits were likely to come over health problems allegedly caused by the facility. In the 76th lawsuit filed, six women who worked at Hinsdale South High School for at least 18 years alleged they contracted cancer because of toxic ethylene oxide emissions from the company’s plant in Willowbrook.

The initial 75 cases filed in Cook County Circuit Court were assigned to Judge Christopher Lawler with Antonio M. Romanucci as the court-appointed lead counsel.

Sterigenics closed its Willowbrook plant in September, citing an unstable regulatory landscape and a failure to broker a new deal on its lease amid opposition from community groups and local politicians.

The Willowbrook facility, which sterilized medical equipment with ethylene oxide, came to public attention in 2018 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed surrounding neighborhoods among just a few dozen nationwide facing cancer risks from air pollution that exceeded agency guidelines.

Nearly all of the risk is from exposure to ethylene oxide, a volatile, easily absorbed chemical added to the federal list of carcinogens in 1985. More recent research shows the chemical is far more dangerous than previously thought, and in 2016 the EPA concluded that exposure to even small concentrations can cause breast cancer, leukemia and lymphomas.

The Chicago Tribune’s Megan Crepeau and Michael Hawthorne contributed.

mgreene@chicagotribune.com

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