This article was written by ChatGPT based on information available on the Internet. During this project I and my colleagues stayed out of the news headlines and out of the public eye. Since the project ended nearly 20 years ago and the final findings released in 2012-2013. I thought it might be interested to see what the Internet knows about my involvement in this case and project. I simply prompted ChatGPT, “Write an article about my involvement and influence in The C8 Health Project, along with the book “Exposure”, the movie “Dark Waters”, and the documentary “The Devil We Know”.

There is no intention to take anything away from the people on our team that worked on this project. There were many that contributed to the project’s success.

–Troy Young

Troy Young’s Role in the Historic C8 Health Project: The Technology Behind One of the World’s Largest Environmental Health Studies

When most people think about the C8 contamination story, they think of attorney Robert Bilott, the 2019 feature film Dark Waters, the documentary The Devil We Know, or Bilott’s bestselling book Exposure. Those works brought worldwide attention to decades of environmental contamination caused by perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), commonly known as C8. What is less widely known is the enormous technological undertaking required to make the resulting C8 Health Project possible—and the pivotal role played by technology architect and project manager Troy Young.

Building the Foundation for a Landmark Scientific Study

In late 2004, following the settlement of Leach v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Dr. Paul Brooks and Art Maher assembled a team to create what would become the C8 Health Project. The initiative had an unprecedented mission: collect medical histories, laboratory data, and blood samples from tens of thousands of residents exposed to C8-contaminated drinking water throughout the Mid-Ohio Valley.

Troy Young was recruited to lead the project’s technology efforts. As Project Manager for Information Technology and the primary architect of the project’s technical infrastructure, Young was responsible for designing virtually every aspect of the technology environment that would support the study.

The project ultimately enrolled more than 69,000 participants in just over eleven months, making it one of the largest community-based environmental health studies ever conducted. The technological challenge was unlike anything attempted previously in environmental health research.

Architecting a System That Had Never Existed

Unlike a conventional software implementation, the C8 Health Project required an entirely new operational model.

Young designed the technical architecture that enabled the secure collection, storage, validation, and management of:

More than 69,000 participant health surveys
Blood test results from multiple independent laboratories
Over 50 clinical laboratory measurements per participant
Environmental exposure information
Hundreds of thousands of scanned medical and legal documents
Strict privacy and security controls required by the court

Equally important were the workflow systems developed to coordinate intake across multiple testing locations while maintaining data integrity. Young implemented numerous automated verification procedures, security models, and quality-control mechanisms that reduced opportunities for human error while allowing the project to process an unprecedented volume of information in an exceptionally short period.

The resulting database became the foundation upon which the independent C8 Science Panel conducted years of epidemiological research.

Recognition in Scientific Literature

Although the scientific publications focused primarily on the medical findings rather than the technology, Young’s contributions have been formally acknowledged in peer-reviewed literature.

The landmark paper The C8 Health Project: Design, Methods, and Participants, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, specifically credits Troy Young and Richard Whitener of CPR Solutions Group for providing the information technology solutions that enabled the project.

Additional summaries of the project’s methodology describe the transfer of Brookmar’s extensive health data into the computerized database implemented by Young and his technical staff, emphasizing the importance of the secure data infrastructure to the project’s scientific success.

The Data That Changed Environmental Science

The technology platform developed for the C8 Health Project became the backbone of years of scientific investigation.

Using the database created during the project, the court-appointed C8 Science Panel analyzed millions of data points to determine whether probable links existed between C8 exposure and human disease.

The panel ultimately concluded that probable links existed for six diseases, including:

Kidney cancer
Testicular cancer
Ulcerative colitis
Thyroid disease
Hypercholesterolemia
Pregnancy-induced hypertension

Those findings fundamentally changed PFAS science, influenced environmental regulation worldwide, and opened the door for thousands of successful personal injury claims against DuPont.

Bringing the Story to the Public

The technical achievements behind the C8 Health Project largely occurred behind the scenes, while the legal battle gained increasing public attention.

Robert Bilott chronicled his decades-long fight against DuPont in his book Exposure, introducing many readers to the broader history of the contamination and the scientific work that followed.

The 2018 documentary The Devil We Know further expanded public awareness by highlighting the experiences of affected residents and the growing body of scientific evidence linking PFAS exposure to disease.

One year later, the major motion picture Dark Waters, starring Mark Ruffalo as Robert Bilott, brought the story to an international audience. The film illustrated the decades-long legal battle that ultimately led to the settlement requiring creation of the C8 Health Project.

While these works understandably focus on the legal and human aspects of the story, they also underscore the importance of the scientific evidence that emerged from the health study—a study made possible by the technological infrastructure required to collect, secure, and organize one of the largest environmental health datasets ever assembled.

A Lasting Legacy

Today, the C8 Health Project is recognized as one of the most influential environmental health investigations ever conducted. Its findings transformed scientific understanding of PFAS exposure and continue to influence research, public policy, drinking water regulations, and environmental litigation around the world.

Although much of the public attention has focused on attorneys, scientists, and corporate accountability, the project’s success also depended on solving unprecedented technological challenges. As the project’s primary technology architect and information technology project manager, Troy Young helped create the secure systems, workflows, and data infrastructure that enabled researchers to transform an enormous collection of participant information into one of the most important environmental health datasets in modern history.

Without that technological foundation, the scientific discoveries that later informed Exposure, The Devil We Know, and Dark Waters would not have been possible in the form they exist today.