Interview Transcript:
Sebastien Sheldon: I’m here with Dr. Noel Kerin, who is a medical practitioner that has practiced solely in the fields of occupational and environmental medicine for the past 25 years, having completed a biochemistry graduate degree at UCC, and post graduate degree in occupational health sciences at McGill University. He also holds a fellowship classification from the Canadian Board of Occupational Medicine. So, Dr. Kerin, tell me a bit about your relationship with John, and how you met him,
Dr. Noel Kerin: I met John Ball shortly after I was asked to do the, to examine the patients on behalf of [Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers Inc.] by our managing director Mary Cook. And I said at the time, I would do it if I could have a colleague and a file manager who I could trust to get the job done, because there were over 800 people who came to the intake clinic in Peterborough, in the summer of 2004.
Sebastien: And so how did John play into this?
Dr. Kerin: Well, as I started to meet people, I began to realize I hadn’t a clue what the inside of GE looked like because we had never had arranged to have a walkthrough survey of the plant, as it already had changed dramatically anyway in 2004. There’s been close down to wire and cable, et cetera, and department, et cetera. So, there was a lot of information. They had seven different industries housed under one roof, which was a 36 acre footprint of building, the GE plant. And, to understand what was going on on that 36 acres, where you had intensively dangerous and intensively busy units of work going on in all areas and in all facets of those industries, John was one of the people that I went to for, but they started started saying “John Ball,” “John Ball.” And I can’t recollect when it was, but it became apparent to me that John Ball did hold a tremendous amount of information that I needed about GE, and about the clinical process, and about the people. John had a vast knowledge.
Sebastien: So, with John as your go-to person for information on the inside of GE, well, in your communications with him, and in all your work with him, what quality in him impressed you the most?
Dr. Kerin: About John Ball? His lack of self-importance. John had a devout interest in what he was studying. He had spent years already, working, trying to get ways to solve this issue in, at GE. And he had spoken with … all of the people who had originally set up the occupational health clinics in Hamilton, and he reached out to many of those people, and while they were helpful, they were not resourced to do much to really help John in his quest. He knew about this long before we arrived on the scene. Back in the 1990s, John was already working on his own with various doctors. And there, you will have found, in his correspondence, records of writing to these people.
Sebastien: And so, through John’s pursuit of knowledge and his work that he did, what impact do you believe that he had on achieving justice for injured workers of GE Peterborough that had been exposed to dangerous chemicals?
Dr. Kerin: He was another absolutely essential centre figure in us understanding the enormity of this toxicology, human toxicology file. Without John Ball it wouldn’t have been possible.
Sebastien: Thank you very much for your time, Dr. Kerin. It’s been wonderful getting to hear from you, thank you again so much for doing this interview.
Dr. Kerin: You’re very welcome.
End of Interview