News Coverage
Chemicals under scrutiny found in California kids, San Diego birds
Published June 4, 2003
Two years ago, the giant 3M company discovered that high levels of a chemical used in its Scotchgard fabric protector were found in dozens of birds whose bodies were plucked off the San Diego coast.
How the chemical found its way into common loons and black-crowned night herons - and into wildlife and people across the country - is just one of many questions that has mystified scientists and convinced federal regulators to look anew at man-made compounds long used in modern conveniences such as Scotchgard, Teflon and Gor-Tex.
Documents and interviews show that companies such as 3M and DuPont continued to profit from these compounds even after company scientists discovered them in drinking water, reassigned plant workers exposed to the contaminants and found the chemical in California children at levels the EPA considers unacceptable.
"Scientists are all asking the same question, which is "How did this happen?' " said Kristina Thayer, senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, which studies the family of chemicals known as perfluorinated acids. "These chemicals have enormous uses in furniture, fabrics, leather, greasy food wraps. Why are we just now finding out about (their) toxic effects and widespread contamination?"
On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold its first public meeting on regulating one of the chemicals - perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. The EPA announced in April that PFOA, which is used to make Teflon, Gore-Tex and hundreds of other products, seemed to cause deaths, birth defects and developmental problems in lab animals.
"We know people are being exposed to (PFOA), we just don't know how," said EPA spokesman Dave Deegan. "There is data from across the U.S. that shows fairly low levels, but fairly widespread, existence of PFOA in people's blood, and some studies show potential toxicological concerns (in animals). At what level might exposure be of concern to people? At this point, we don't have enough reliable information."
The DuPont chemical company is the nation's largest manufacturer of PFOA. "We contend there have been no harmful effects to humans, and we're quite confident of that," said DuPont spokesman Clif Webb. "But we're more than willing to cooperate with the EPA."
Perfluorinated acids are popular for their ability to repel water and oil and to resist heat. For a half-century, 3M, Dupont and other companies have used PFOA and a cousin chemical - PFOS - to create a multi-billion dollar industry of fabric protectors and firefighting foams, popcorn bags and hamburger wrappers, and coatings for computer chips and computer hardware.
The chemicals build up in human blood, don't break down once there, and have been linked to tumors, stillbirths, liver damage and reproductive problems in lab animals.
In 1995, alarmed that the chemicals were found in blood banks across the country, 3M launched a study and concluded that PFOA and PFOS were showing up everywhere - in birds, whales, dolphins, apples, bread, ground beef, Arctic polar bears and people. 3M announced in May 2000 that it would stop using and manufacturing both chemicals.
"We found this material widespread in the environment and in people's blood, so we decided to stop making it," said 3M medical director Larry Zobel. "We're very confident that the very low levels we found are not associated with any health effects."
But in one of its 1995 studies - a survey of 545 children that included two-dozen from California - 3M found that some children had blood levels of PFOA even higher than those of lab rats who experienced low birth weight and decreased growth when given the chemical.
Moreover, the study found that levels of PFOS in some children were outside the margin of safety the EPA considers acceptable. For example, levels of PFOS in some California girls was 60 times lower than the levels at which female rats developed mammary gland tumors. Typically, the EPA would consider it safe only if the blood levels were 100 times lower than that of the rats. Some California boys had blood levels only 40 times lower than the levels at which male rats developed cellular damage in their livers.
"That's dangerously close," said Thayer of the Environmental Working Group. "This means that some levels (in children) are above a safe dose."
Zobel said Thayer's group made assumptions about the 3M data that are wrong. He also said the group focused on the highest levels found in children's blood. It is more scientifically sound, he said, to focus on the average blood levels, which in fact are well within the EPA's margin of safety. "You want to know what's going on in the population as a whole," Zobel said. "You certainly wouldn't expect any health effects" at the average levels.
Two years after 3M completed the children's study, it hired scientist Kurunthachalam Kannan to take another look at how the chemicals accumulated in wildlife. Among the animals Kannan studied were three dozen loons, Black-crowned night herons and Brandt's cormorants found dead along San Diego County's shores.
In 2001, Kannan came to this conclusion: A majority of the San Diego birds had PFOS levels in their livers far higher than those shown to cause egg cell thinning in birds and still-births in mink.
3M ignored Kannan when he urged more sensitive tests.
Further study "is critical to be able to say whether there's risk (to humans)," said Kannan, now a researcher with the New York State Department of Health. "Without (more studies), it's hard to say (the chemicals) are not a problem."
3M's major competitor, DuPont, continues to use PFOA, which is like a soap that allows chemicals to mix together to form the protective coating in products such as Teflon and Gore-Tex.
Residents in the town of Little Hocking, Ohio, which sits across the river from a DuPont plant in West Virginia, discovered just last year that there was PFOA in their drinking water.
According to a company memo, however, DuPont knew about the contamination in 1984. The memo shows that DuPont that year tested water in several nearby towns, and found detectable levels of the chemical in at least three places. "We weren't happy about it," said Bob Griffin, general manager of the Little Hocking Water Association, which is still deciding if it will sue DuPont, as have residents of the nearby Lubeck Public Service District. "(DuPont) said they didn't think there was a problem with the chemical, but we'd like to have more than their say-so."
DuPont spokesman Webb noted there is no evidence that the chemical causes health problems even in DuPont plant workers who are exposed to it daily. "Obviously there have been questions raised about (the chemicals)," Webb said. "But in over 50 years of using this material, we've not seen adverse health effects."
Yet at one point, DuPont was concerned enough about its plant workers to reassign some of them. Three years before DuPont found PFOA in Little Hocking water, it discovered the chemical in female plant workers, two of whom gave birth to children who had what DuPont called "unconfirmed" eye and nostril defects, according to a 1981 memo. DuPont transferred the women from areas where the chemical was used, but later let the women return to their regular jobs.