News Coverage
DuPont Teflon Chemical Has Cancer Potential, EPA Says
Published January 12, 2005
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said a chemical used to make DuPont Co.'s Teflon nonstick coatings has the potential to cause cancer in humans. The government's preliminary study did not make a definitive link.
The agency's draft assessment found unusually high exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, caused liver and testicular cancer in animals, and those effects might occur in people. The study will be reviewed next month by a panel of scientists outside the agency, Charles Auer, the director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention & Toxics, said today.
"We have identified potential for carcinogenicity, but the information is not sufficient for conclusions to be made regarding carcinogenicity," Auer said on a conference call with reporters.
PFOA is found in the blood of the general population at about 5 parts per billion, hundreds to thousands of times below the levels associated with potential ill effects, Auer said. DuPont faces an EPA penalty of as much as $300 million for allegedly failing to disclose possible health risks about PFOA for 20 years.
The independent scientific review "is a critical action to evaluate the data and assumptions" of the EPA study, Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont said in a statement.
Raises Questions
"Although, to date, no human health effects are known to be caused by PFOA, the company recognizes that the presence of PFOA in human blood raises questions that should be addressed," DuPont said. PFOA research will continue "in cooperation with regulators, industry and the academic community to expand the understanding of the compound," the company said.
Shares of DuPont rose 2 cents to $47.21 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They rose 6.9 percent last year.
PFOA is used to make fluoropolymers found in firefighting foam, phone cables, computer chips and Teflon pots and pans. DuPont's fluoropolymers and telomers products contributed about $1.23 billion to 2003 sales and $100 million to profit, JP Morgan analyst Jeffrey J. Zekauskas said in a report last year. DuPont's earnings in 2003 were $973 million on revenue of $27 billion.
The EPA also determined that animal studies showing weight loss and developmental effects from PFOA exposure may apply to humans. PFOA targets the liver, with half of a given dose remaining in the human body after 4.4 years, EPA said.
The agency will conduct additional studies in an effort to determine how PFOA enters the environment and human bodies, Auer said. Possible sources include incineration and degradation of products made with PFOA, including nonstick cookware, Auer said.
"The evidence we've seen is that PFOA is not formed at cooking temperatures," Auer said. "But when cookware is left on the stove too long at too high a temperature, there is evidence that it can be released."
The agency is working with DuPont and other companies to determine whether voluntary or regulatory actions are needed to protect human health and the environment.
The Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based watchdog group, said the EPA study failed to label PFOA as carcinogenic, contrary to its own guidelines. "At every turn in this important process, EPA officials favored DuPont," group President Ken Cook said in a statement. "For those who were expecting a thorough and fair review, this is a huge disappointment."
The EPA also did not consider data showing people with high levels of PFOA had elevated cholesterol levels, Cook said. DuPont yesterday released a study showing elevated cholesterol levels among PFOA workers at its Washington Works plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
In September, DuPont agreed to pay $108 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging PFOA polluted water supplies near the Parkersburg plant.