Conde's Nightmare Pt. 1

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Conde's Nightmare

Part One - Family driven from dream home

A man in jeans and a T-shirt comes to Rhonda Conde's door. He's from SWAT Exterminators, he says, and he's armed with a pressurized canister. It's April 8, 1983. The Condes have just moved into their dream home overlooking a golf course in Megs County - a $250,000 luxury home with a swimming pool. Termite treatment is among the last jobs to be done. Rhonda Conde shows her visitor to the basement, where holes have been drilled in the concrete-block foundation. He sticks a nozzle into a hole. It makes a hissing sound. The odor is strong on the main floor. Rhonda Conde yells down the stairwell, "Hey, is that stuff dangerous?" "No, ma'am, absolutely not," the exterminator yells back. By the time he was done, 400 gallons of Gold Crest C100, a compound of chlordane and heptachlor, were injected into the Conde home and the grounds around it. Two days later, 15 month-old Kimberly Conde started vomiting. Then the rest of the family came down with a variety of symptoms-vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, dizziness, tremors, night sweats and rashes. No one was spared. Autumn, 4, Ryan, 6, Kimberly and both parents were ill. Even Jasper, the cat, was throwing up. For three years, the symptoms flared and subsided. Jim Conde is a doctor. His wife is a nurse. Still, neither guessed the origin of their maladies. But from that day in 1983, the Condes say, their story became tragic. They've lost their home, their health and their hope for the future. The house, they say, is a toxic wasteland, abandoned except for copperhead snakes whose rotting corpses litter the basement. The 4,000 square-foot house and its grounds have become a playground for vandals. Windows are smashed; screens are ripped. Beyond their personal tragedy, the Condes' story has frightening and far-reaching implications. In the 40 years prior to 1987, tens of millions of homes were treated with chlordane and heptachlor. Scientists say no one knows for sure what levels, if any, are safe.

Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed nationwide against chlordane's manufacturer, Velsicol Chemical Corp. Comparatively few have succeeded. That's because it's difficult to prove a link between chlordane or any other substance and long-term health effects, scientists say. Velsicol says chlordane doesn't cause any long-term health problem. Nevertheless, under heavy pressure from the Environmental Protection Agency, Velsicol withdrew chlordane from U.S. markets in 1987. Most physicians know little about chlordane and its effects. Since Conde has studied the subject, he consults with experts and monitors his family's health himself. Broke and disillusioned, the family moved to Spring Valley south of Dayton last year, and Conde enrolled in an emergency medicine residency at Good Samaritan Hospital and Health Center. He had practiced general medicine in Pomeroy for 17 years. They left Megs County, Rhoda said, because " the pain had become too much to bear." Abnormalities in the Condes' blood were confirmed by Arthur Zahalsky, Ph.D., professor of immunology at Southern Illinois University. The Conde children have autoimmune antibodies, Zahalsky said. "That's when a person's body is making antibodies against itself," he said. Zahalsky says chlordane caused the antibodies, caused Ryan's liver disorders and weakened Rhonda's immune system bringing on bouts of chronic fatigue syndrome and other illnesses. more.....