This story was originally published on Jan. 28, 2026 by the .
February 3, 2026, marks three years since a massive train derailment and chemical burn in East Palestine, Ohio, released over a million pounds of vinyl chloride, used in making plastic, and other industrial chemicals into the air and water outside, and also inside buildings and homes.
In the weeks that followed, including headaches, coughs and respiratory issues. Since then, there have been looking at the impacts to public health and the environment.
Testing liver health over time
Juliane Beier, an assistant professor of medicine in gastroenterology at the University of Pittsburgh, studies how the liver is affected when it鈥檚 exposed to vinyl chloride. The chemical was purposefully in East Palestine, which exploded and spread throughout the community.
Beier is currently 120 people who live within a 10-mile radius of the derailment as part of her second study cohort in the area.
For those who have had liver health tests so far, 鈥�we do have about 30-some percent with blood markers of liver damage,鈥� she said.
While that sounds like a lot, Beier said that it鈥檚 not necessarily different from U.S. populations in certain areas of the country. Alcohol consumption and obesity are risk factors for liver disease, and these can be especially high in rural areas like East Palestine, according to Beier.
鈥淪o at this time, we can鈥檛 really say this is due to the derailment,鈥� Beier said. 鈥淚t could be other risk factors causing this. This is why it鈥檚 so important to come in, like every year from now, to look at their progression.鈥�
Beier鈥檚 work studying the liver and thyroid function of people in East Palestine is through a $2.2 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.
She said liver cancer can take 10 or 20 years to develop, but exposure to chemicals can speed up its progress. Her team tested indoor air and water in 100 homes close to the derailment site for vinyl chloride and other volatile organic compounds. Details of their findings are not yet available.
Not everyone with liver damage winds up with what she called 鈥渆nd-stage鈥� liver disease, and her effort to track people is meant to help with early identification. Beier said that with behavioral changes, such as reducing alcohol consumption or body weight, early-stage liver damage can be reversible.
鈥淗owever, the further along they go鈥he higher the risk for liver failure at the end,鈥� she said.
But behavioral factors don鈥檛 explain everything Beier has found so far in East Palestine. She said one person who lives close to the derailment site, and whose home had concerning air quality test results, had a liver scan that shows they 鈥溾�robably ha[ve] advanced liver disease,鈥� even though they are relatively young, had normal blood markers for liver disease, have a 鈥渘ormal鈥� body weight, and were not drinking alcohol. 鈥淚t is concerning,鈥� Beier said.
In the next few weeks, Beier plans to to track their liver and thyroid health.
She also offers advice to people who fear their homes are contaminated: Keep the windows open when possible to release any chemicals that are trapped inside.
Beyond humans: health study of dogs
Following the derailment, many people were concerned about , wild animals and pets in the area. Elinor Karlsson, a computational biologist at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, and director of Vertebrate Genomics at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and her team, along with a partner lab at Oregon State University, were able to connect with local groups and find dog owners interested in participating in a
鈥淲e have 75 dog tags from people living everywhere from right next to where the train crash happened to 50 to 100 miles away,鈥� Karlsson said. Within two months after the chemicals were released in East Palestine, her team sent out what are called passive samplers to interested dog owners in the area.
鈥淵ou just attach it to your dog鈥檚 collar, and it hangs there. You don鈥檛 need to interact with it at all. But all it is is a little dog tag made out of silicone,鈥� she said.
Silicone absorbs anything that鈥檚 in the air around it, according to Karlsson. 鈥淪o we actually got on what chemicals those dogs were exposed to,鈥� she said.
In the summer of 2024, they sent out another round of samplers for comparison. By then, they expected air quality would be closer to what was normal in the area.
鈥淭he dogs that were living closest to the train crash had exposure to chemicals that were different from what they had a year later,鈥� she said. 鈥淎nd also seem to be different from dogs living further away from the train crash site.鈥�
They don鈥檛 know yet what that means for the dogs鈥� health.
The team is exploring other technologies and wants to track the dogs over time, although they don鈥檛 have the funding to do so.
Karlsson said health impacts, such as liver disease, don鈥檛 take as long to develop in dogs, and that can inform human treatments.
鈥�One of the things that鈥檚 the biggest puzzle in human health is how exposures in your environment change your risk of getting diseases like cancer,鈥� she said. 鈥淒ogs are a great model for understanding this question because they tend to have shorter lifespans, very sadly, but that means that we can sort of study diseases more quickly in dogs.鈥�
Applying lessons to other disaster sites
Andrew Whelton, a professor of environmental engineering at Purdue University, and his team have taken to help people in Los Angeles in the wake of last year鈥檚 devastating wildfires.
鈥淲e are encountering homes where some people got sick [in L.A.] because of a failure to properly identify health risks,鈥� Whelton said in an email.
His team revealed that when contractors for the railway company, Norfolk Southern, were testing buildings and homes near the derailment site for chemicals, to see if they were safe for people to re-enter, the handheld sensors they were using, called photoionization detectors, were to detect the levels and types of chemicals that were present.
Many were with fine particulate matter and volatile organic compounds from the fires. Whelton said he has been working with 600 homeowners, reviewing their chemical testing reports, the guidance they鈥檙e getting from their insurance companies and the insurance companies鈥� consultants being sent to test homes.
鈥� that we saw in East Palestine seem to be repeating themselves in L.A., where some companies aren鈥檛 actually testing the buildings correctly or using the right equipment,鈥� Whelton said.
He said in L.A., some contractors were charging up to $10,000 a day to test houses, to determine whether they were safe for people to return, and their testing equipment wouldn鈥檛 have been able to detect indoor air quality problems.
鈥淏ut the odors are overwhelming, and people can鈥檛 necessarily be in that building,鈥� Whelton said.
Whelton鈥檚 team created a for homeowners, business owners and local government officials, based on and East Palestine.
鈥淪o instead of just listening to somebody talk and give their opinion and assume that they know what they鈥檙e talking about, we provided some common, plain language kind of information that they can use to get themselves up to speed so that they determine what they need to do, what things to look for and what things to look out for,鈥� he said.
One thing they noticed was that people in wealthier communities, such as the Palisades, were less likely to return to homes that might be contaminated than those in working-class areas, like those around the Eaton fire in L.A. or East Palestine.
Environmental justice and rural Ohio
The idea that some communities are disadvantaged and more likely to experience pollution because of their race or income level, and the effort to provide them with additional assistance, is known as environmental justice.
Researcher Kyle Keeler, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at Lafayette College in eastern Pennsylvania, along with Nicholas Theis, a sociologist at Kenyon College in Ohio, looked at East Palestine through an Their article was published in the Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
Even though this is a low-income, rural area, Keeler said people in the area around East Palestine don鈥檛 necessarily understand that they鈥檙e experiencing environmental disadvantages similar to an inner-city neighborhood or a Native American reservation.
鈥淣o one is immune to these injustices, and they will continue to happen and continue to ramp up, and the only way to make any sort of difference and any sort of headway against these injustices is not just to look at the injustices in our own communities, but the injustices everywhere, and work towards justice for everyone,鈥� Keeler said. 鈥淎nd that is a huge request, right?鈥�