News Coverage
DuPont to test workers for C8
Published April 29, 2004
DuPont Co. said Thursday that it plans to test up to 750 workers at its Parkersburg plant to see if their health has been damaged by exposure to the chemical C8.
Company officials said that the health survey, coordinated by DuPont's internal laboratory, would cost at least $ 1 million. About one-third of the plant's 2,200 employees could take part. Results are expected in September, at about the same time that a trial is scheduled to start in a major lawsuit that alleges DuPont has poisoned plant neighbors with emissions of C8 into their air and water.
"I encourage your involvement with the medical professionals to proactively look at the collective health of our Washington Works employees," plant manager Paul Bossert said in a Thursday letter to workers. "Doing so will help us assure that we continue to have a safe, healthy workplace."
50 years of use
C8 is another name for perfluorooctanoate, and is also known as perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA. At its Washington Works plant, DuPont has used C8 for more than 50 years in the production of Teflon.
In their lawsuit against DuPont, residents alleged that the chemical giant has known for decades that C8 was harmful to humans, but concealed that knowledge from the public.
Last year, the state Supreme Court overturned a ruling by Wood Circuit Judge George Hill that required DuPont to fund C8 blood tests for thousands of Washington Works neighbors.
In court documents, lawyers for the residents have outlined a variety of information about C8's dangers - including potential harm to workers - which DuPont knew about for years.
For example, Dupont recognized by at least 1980 that C8 is "highly toxic" by inhalation and "slightly to moderately toxic" by other routes of exposure, according to one brief filed with the Supreme Court.
Also by at least the 1980s, DuPont recommended that workers with potential exposure to C8 wear special protective clothing and equipment, including special breathing devices. The company concluded that, "continued exposure is not tolerable," the residents' lawyers told the court.
In August 2003, the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group complained to federal regulators that DuPont had not reported a 1981 finding of birth defects in two of seven children born to C8-exposed workers at the Parkersburg plant. On Thursday, DuPont officials invited Parkersburg-area media to a press conference to announce plans for the study.
Employees were given a form to fill out if they want to volunteer to take part in the health survey.
According to a "Questions and Answers" sheet, workers who take part will be given physicals and will provide blood and urine samples.
"While we strongly believe that scientific evidence clearly supports the conclusion that [C8] causes no adverse health effects, we want to add to our knowledge about this material," DuPont said in the Questions and Answers sheet.
Robin Leonard, a DuPont epidemiologist, said, "We don't want to miss anything if there is anything out there."
Motives questioned
Ed Hill, one of the residents' lawyers, said the DuPont study is "obviously designed to affect the litigation."
Hill said he was concerned that the results would be completed just in time for use by DuPont at trial, but not far enough in advance for the plaintiffs' experts to thoroughly review.
"This is being done without involvement of counsel on behalf of the plaintiffs," Hill said. "All of these employees who have consumed the water contaminated by C8 are our clients.
"We question DuPont's motivation in doing this and timing it in a fashion that the results will not be available until this matter is scheduled to go to trial," Hill said.