In the late 1980s, coal tar dust left behind by an abandoned gas plant was exposed in the central Illinois town of Taylorville. Several children were soon diagnosed with neuroblastoma – a rare form of childhood cancer. Bill Clutter, a private investigator from Springfield, helped a group of mothers take the cases to court.
Clutter talked with reporter Daisy Contreras about his new book “Coal Tar: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing America's Children ” – where he tells the story of how the outbreak came to be and how families are grappling with the aftermath three decades later.
