June 2020, Bayer agreed to pay $650 million to settle local lawsuits related to Monsanto's pollution of public waters in various areas of the United States with PCBs. History In 1865, the first "PCB-like" chemical was discovered, and was found to be a byproduct of coal tar. Years later in 1876, German chemist Oscar Döbner (Doebner) synthesized the first PCB in a laboratory. Since then, large amounts of PCBs were released into the environment, to the extent that there are even measurable amounts of PCBs in feathers of birds currently held in museums before the production of PCBs peaked. In 1935, Monsanto Chemical Company (now Solutia Inc) took over commercial production of PCBs from Swann Chemical Company which had begun in 1929. PCBs, originally termed "chlorinated diphenyls", were commercially produced as mixtures of isomers at different degrees of chlorination. The electric industry used PCBs as a non-flammable replacement for mineral oil to cool and insulate industrial transformers and capacitors. PCBs were also commonly used as heat stabilizer in cables and electronic components to enhance the heat and fire resistance of PVC. In the 1930s, the toxicity associated with PCBs and other chlorinated hydrocarbons, including polychlorinated naphthalenes, was recognized because of a variety of industrial incidents. Between 1936 and 1937, there were several medical cases and papers released on the possible link between PCBs and its detrimental health effects. In 1936 a U.S. Public health Service official described the wife and child of a worker from the Monsanto Industrial Chemical Company who exhibited blackheads and pustules on their skin. The official attributed these symptoms to contact with the worker's clothing after he returned from work. In 1937, a conference about the hazards was organized at Harvard School of Public Health, and a number of publications referring to the toxicity of various chlorinated hydrocarbons were published before 1940. In 1947, Robert Brown reminded chemists that Arochlors were "objectionably toxic": "Thus the maximum permissible concentration for an 8-hr. day is 1 mg. per cu.m. [] of air. They also produce a serious and disfiguring dermatitis". In 1954, Kanegafuchi Chemical Co. Ltd. (Kaneka Corporation) first produced PCBs, and continued until 1972. Through the 1960s Monsanto Chemical Company knew increasingly more about PCBs' harmful effects on humans and the environment, per internal leaked documents released in 2002, yet PCB manufacture and use continued with few restraints until the 1970s. In 1966, PCBs were determined by