Whistle blown on faulty armor
Kenneth Casperson
11-12-06

Every now and again, a story hits the news about a company that has gone too far one way or another  Enron has been making numbers up and hiding its failures for years, scandals in embezzlement, or some company has produced a part that was defective to the point of being deadly. This story happens to be to the tone of the last one, and, according to court rulings and the testimony of Dr. Aaron Westrick, a professor here at LSSU, has already led to at least one death and the crippling of another man. 
The product is body armor, the bulletproof vests you see men and women wearing when they expect to be shot at in the course of their day, also worn by soldiers and dignitaries (including President Bush and his wife) when in potentially hostile territory. Specifically, body armor manufactured by Second Chance, a Michigan based company that uses a fiber called Zylon, which has been described by Toyobo officials (Toyobo being the Japanese company that produces the fiber) as Kevlar on steroids. Kevlar is the flexible, impact absorbing fiber made famous in movies and cop shows, although it has been replaced in recent years by more effective materials  Zylon being one of them. 
Zylon vests by Second Chance were issued beginning in 1998, and though they were officially and thoroughly banned by the government in 2005, most Zylon materials stopped being used in 2004. Since the problems started to surface, thanks in large part to inside information provided by Dr. Westrick, several court cases and hearings have been opened against both Second Chance and Toyobo for corruption and knowingly producing and selling a defective (and potentially deadly) product. 
The problems inherent in the fiber were brought under close public scrutiny in 2003 after officer Tony Zeppetella was shot and killed in California, and officer Ed Limbacher (whose only months-old vest was found to have degraded by more than 30%) was shot and crippled, both while wearing Second Chance vests. While the company denied the fact that the vests were defective, Dr. Westrick testified that the Second Chance company was aware of the defect in the product as early as 2001, and not only did nothing to avert the issue, but actively ignored his attempts to get the product recalled. I strongly believed that this was a threat, and that some police officer could be killed, said Westrick on a deposition tape, which NBC aired in 2004. Westrick also cites memos he sent to the heads of the company in 2001, saying that lives and our credibility are at stake, and urging the company not to continue operating as though nothing is wrong until one of our customers gets killed. Apparently, however, his warnings went unheeded. 
While many polymers degrade over time with exposure to UV radiation, the very molecular structure of the Zylon fiber was found in tests conducted at the Second Chance research center, and some tests done here at LSSU, to be subject to hydrolysis that destroys the materials impact-absorbing properties. Hydrolysis is a reaction in which contact with water molecules breaks down (or cuts, using the meaning of the words roots  Hydro, meaning water, and lysis, meaning to cut) a materials molecular structure. Since, according to Westrick, moisture is present even during the manufacturing process of both the materials and the vests, the Zylon fiber is degraded from the second it leaves the factory and will continue to break down after that. When this started being made into body armor, for whatever reason - and this will probably come out in court - persons either didnt do the research or they probably just didnt want to see it in my opinion, it never should have been used in armor. Ive been right so far on this. 
Westrick also said that he informed the other officials in the company, who were unresponsive to his information They told me I didnt know what I was talking about, they threatened me, he said in an interview last week. And now it appears that theyre going to be in big trouble, probably sooner rather than later, there are civil and criminal cases being brought against the company. Westrick obviously has not made many friends in the industry by putting out his findings to the public and said that This group is so widespread, that even here, at Lake State, the president and others have been really good to me, but people here, in this department even, try to create problems for me while I sit here, because they believe  falsely  that their friends wouldnt do anything wrong. Well, well see the question is of course why would all these supposedly good executives do something like this, and the answer is, of course, millions of dollars. Dr. Youngblood continues to support Dr. Westrick and has great respect for his ethics and dedication. LSSU has been a blessing with great students, faculty, and administration. I enjoy working here, Westrick added.  They have all been supportive of my teaching and my background. The President and Provost have shown the utmost confidence in me and I appreciate it deeply.
The case, which is on a massive federal level and involves hundreds of millions of dollars, is still under investigation. While some say it is a product liability case, Westrick says that since money to buy body armor comes from the government, They say, in laymans terms, well give you money for this product, and it has to do something, the company says sure, we can do that  well, they knew that it wouldnt do it (the vests), and yet they took hundreds of millions of dollars of government money. He insists that is a fraud case. It works, dont get me wrong, but it does not perform to its standard, especially over time. Some might argue that it works to its standard, right out of the factory, but here is a product that is warranted for five years. When asked if he thought it was wrong, Westrick quickly replied No, and its not just me anymore. He also cited the Limbacher case, which Second Chance settled out of court, and both companies were found guilty of failing to warn customers after the death of Zeppetella that police officer would not have bought the vest, would not have spent the extra money, if he had been warned.
This vest was their big profit maker, and they firmly believed that they could keep on selling this until they had made millions of dollars, and then fight it off in court. Even after police officers were shot, they still thought they could pull it off. After the death, however, government research was conducted into the defects in the product and the problems were brought into full public view. Now a lot of people in the industry are coming out and saying yeah, this is a problem. Westrick, however, was the first. 
Dr. Westrick was awarded the Whistleblower Award by the National Whistleblower center, an organization that recognizes people for blowing the lid off of cases that people in power try to keep hidden, a small plaque that represents a large sacrifice. Second Chance is now bankrupt and the remaining companies affiliated now are spending most of their time trying to discredit Westrick as the key witness against them in suits to come. Theyve actually come out and said that I was never their director of research, Westrick said, before producing his business card, which disproving their story. They said Ive never set foot in a ballistic lab, well, theres one at Second Chance, and I have hundreds of ballistic tests that say otherwise. Westrick is, however, recognized by the US government as an expert in his field and will have full authority to make his claims in any case that happens to come in the future.  
The case has not yet come to a head, however it is expected to  and Westrick believes it will be soon. Until then, and afterward, he says he will stand by his claims  and the evidence. 
