Bloomberg, Jack Kaskey
Published October 17, 2006
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- DuPont Co., the third-largest U.S. chemical maker, said a long-term mortality study of 6,000 workers at a West Virginia factory shows a suspected carcinogen used to make Teflon coatings doesn't harm people.
Employees who worked at the Washington Works plant from 1948 to 2002 had lower mortality rates than the general population of West Virginia and the U.S., Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont said today in a statement. The plant makes PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical used to make nonstick coatings and stain-resistant clothing and carpets.
DuPont last year agreed to pay $107.6 million to settle claims that PFOA from the West Virginia plant tainted the drinking water of 60,000 people. DuPont also would pay as much as $235 million for medical monitoring should company-funded studies find PFOA caused health problems.
The latest study ``supports a conclusion that there are no human-health effects known to be caused by PFOA,'' Dr. Sol Sax, DuPont chief medical officer, said in the statement. ``If health effects were associated with PFOA exposure, they almost certainly would be more prevalent among employees who are occupationally exposed to the compound.''
Shares of DuPont fell 41 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $44.95 at 4:17 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have gained 19 percent in the past year.
An Environmental Protection Agency scientific advisory board has said PFOA is a likely human carcinogen, based on animal studies. The EPA is still evaluating the chemical's human-health effects.
`Misleading'
``The notion that you are less likely to die if you work around PFOA is really misleading,'' said Richard Wiles, senior vice president at Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based watchdog. ``Workers are generally more healthy than the population at large, so they aren't telling us anything we don't already know.''
One of three analyses of the data found a ``slight'' increase in heart disease deaths in employees most exposed to PFOA, Sax said in an interview. It involved employees exposed to the chemical 10 years before their death, Sax said. The finding is not statistically significant and might be a random occurrence, he said.
A ``slight'' increase in kidney cancer deaths also wasn't statistically significant, DuPont said. The finding involved a small number of kidney-cancer deaths that included plant employees that didn't work directly with PFOA, Sax said. About a third of workers worked with the chemical, he said.
A DuPont study last year found some lipids, such as cholesterol, were ``modestly'' higher in the most exposed workers. The latest study found the plant's workers overall died from heart disease and cancer at the same rates as residents in the rest of the state and the U.S., DuPont said.
Prostate cancer rates were lower among the plant workers, contradicting an earlier study, DuPont said.
The study was reviewed by an independent board of scientists from Georgetown University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, the University of Washington and Yale University. It will be provided to the EPA and submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed scientific journal, spokesman Dan Turner said.
DuPont has pledged to almost eliminate PFOA exposure from factories and products by 2015. The company has slashed PFOA emissions 95 percent at U.S. plants since 2000.
Dow Chemical Co. is the biggest U.S. chemical maker by 2005 revenue, followed by Exxon Mobil Corp.
