severe convulsions resulting from degradation of the synaptic junctions. Chronic low level exposure appears to cause prostate cancer in men, and "significant excesses of deaths were observed for stomach cancer in women and pancreatic cancer in women". Chlordecone has been found to act as an agonist of the GPER (GPR30), which interacts strongly with the estrogen sex hormone estradiol. Incidents The history of chlordecone incidents are reviewed in Who's Poisoning America?: Corporate Polluters and Their Victims in the Chemical Age (1982). James River estuary In July 1975, Virginia Governor Mills Godwin Jr. shut down the James River to fishing for 100 miles, from Richmond to the Chesapeake Bay. This ban remained in effect for 13 years, until efforts to clean up the river began to show results. Due to the pollution risks, many fishermen, marinas, seafood businesses, and restaurants, along with their employees along the river suffered economic losses. In 1981, a large group of these entities sued Allied Chemical in federal district court (Eastern District of Virginia), claiming special economic damages from Allied's negligent damage to the fish and wildlife. In a case that sometimes appears in law school courses on Remedies, the court rejected the traditional "economic-loss rule", which requires physical impact causing personal injury or property damage to receive economic damages, and instead allowed a limited group of the plaintiffs—the fishing boat owners, the marinas, and the bait and tackle shops—to recover economic damages from Allied Chemical. French Antilles The French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe are heavily contaminated with chlordecone, following years of its massive and unrestricted use on banana plantations. Despite a 1990 ban on the substance in mainland France, the economically powerful banana planters lobbied intensively to obtain a waiver to keep using kepone until 1993. They argued that no alternative pesticide was available, which has since been disputed. After the 1993 ban, the banana planters were discreetly granted derogations to use their remaining stocks, and a 2005 report prepared by the French National Assembly states that the chemical, under the name Curlone, most likely continued to be illegally imported and was used for many more years. Since 2003, local authorities in the two islands have restricted cultivation of many food crops because the soil is badly contaminated by chlordecone. A 2018 large-scale study by the French public health agency, Santé publique France, shows that 95% of the inhabitants of Guadeloupe and 92% of