Paid guides needed this weekend to help run GenX clinic

A GenX clinic to be held over the weekend in Wilmington is in need of workers.

North Carolina State University is seeking members of the community to serve as clinic guides, a job that pays $12 per hour. 

Guides will be responsible for walking the clinic’s participants between sampling stations, ensuring that the clinic is run properly. Prior training or certification is not required.

The clinic will be held at the New Hanover County Health and Human Services building, 1650 Greenfield St. at the following times:

• 2:30-6 p.m. Friday.
• 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Saturday.
• 8:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sunday.

Those interested may contact hebaile2@ncsu.edu.

An in-person community meeting is scheduled for 6-8 p.m. Oct. 29 to go over the results of the 2023 exposure study. That meeting will be held at Cape Fear Community College, 502 N. Front St.

Researchers have been studying exposure and health outcomes of residents who live in the Cape Fear River basin from Pittsboro to Fayetteville to New Hanover and Brunswick counties, areas where drinking water sources have been contaminated for years by the chemical compound.

The study aims to track participants for a minimum of five years and up to 20 in an effort to learn more about how GenX and other per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, affect human health.

Tens of thousands of residents in the Cape Fear region have been exposed to PFAS in their drinking water sources for years. One of those substances, GenX, is specific to the Chemours Fayetteville Works plant, which sits on the banks of the Cape Fear River some 75 miles upstream of Wilmington.