Michael Sheen Investigates Cancer Fears Tied to Chemical Dumping in Wales

Welsh actor Michael Sheen is investigating whether dangerous chemicals dumped in Wales decades ago have caused rare cancers in local people. A new BBC documentary follows Sheen as he looks into the story of Michael Phillips, who grew up playing near a polluted lagoon in Wrexham, Wales. Several of Phillips's friends and Phillips himself later developed rare cancers, which they believe may be connected to those toxic chemicals. Sheen continued the investigation after speaking with a researcher named Douglas Gowan, who had tried to warn people about the danger before he died.

As a child in the 1980s, Phillips played with friends at a lagoon near Ruabon in Wrexham. The children shot air guns at rusty barrels, releasing clouds of colored powder. They had no idea the powder contained harmful chemicals. Decades later, Phillips and many of his friends became seriously ill with cancers that doctors said were very unusual.

Phillips described what happened to people he knew near the lagoon. One close friend who spent a lot of time there died of breast cancer, another died of brain cancer, and others had cancerous lymph glands. A surgeon told Phillips that two people from the same neighborhood getting the exact same rare cancer was like winning the lottery every day for six months. The surgeon said it was not a coincidence.

The chemicals at the center of this story are called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. These are man-made chemicals that were once used in everything from electrical equipment to paint and plastics. They do not break down easily in nature, which means they can stay in the environment for a very long time. Because they linger in soil, water, and the bodies of animals and people, scientists now call PCBs 'forever chemicals.'

A researcher named Douglas Gowan had tried to sound the alarm about 14 toxic dump sites — 12 of them in Wales. He believed that Monsanto, a large chemical company, had dumped huge amounts of PCBs across Wales without proper rules or oversight. 'There was no regulation at the time, they could dump it wherever they wanted to,' Gowan said. Sadly, Gowan died before his warnings were fully heard.

Sheen had his own blood tested and found 81 different types of PCBs in his body, even though he had never lived near a dump site. Phillips's blood also showed higher-than-average levels of PCBs. Sheen was disturbed by this finding. 'It's chilling to think that having any PCBs in your blood is normal, when 90 years ago no-one would have had them as they didn't exist,' he said.

Monsanto's chemical dumping was not limited to Wales. The company first pumped PCBs into waterways in Anniston, Alabama, in the United States, and in 1993 the whole town sued the company. The case became one of the largest lawsuits by a single town in U.S. history and was settled for $300 million. Internal documents showed Monsanto knew PCBs were toxic as far back as 1949.

By 1972, Monsanto decided to stop making PCBs in Anniston because of the legal risks in America. Instead, it moved production to Newport, Wales, where fewer restrictions existed at the time. Journalist Dan Ashby, who helped with the investigation, said the company moved because the legal risk in America was too high. The UK government also told industry it would not restrict importing PCBs, so hundreds of tonnes were brought in from around the world.

Sheen and his team brought their findings to Wales's Parliament, asking for more testing and action for affected communities. Kirsty Luff of Friends of the Earth Cymru called for a public inquiry into toxic sites across Wales and warned that climate change could make things worse. Flooding could push buried chemicals to the surface, spreading them into fields and waterways. The Welsh government said it plans to create a strategy to clean up industrial land and protect communities from these risks.

Wrexham council said investigations found the lagoon site did not meet the legal level requiring a cleanup, but it continues to carry out regular inspections and water monitoring. The Welsh government acknowledged that more than 9,000 potential contaminated sites were identified in a 2015 survey of local authorities. Sheen urged people to keep fighting for answers. 'These people deserve more,' he said. 'They deserve their concerns to be met with proper research and appropriate action.'