News Coverage
Employees who work near C-8 show increased cholesterol levels
Published January 12, 2005
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. - DuPont Co. announced Tuesday that samples taken from more than 1,000 employees at a West Virginia plant revealed increased levels of total cholesterol in those working closest to a chemical used to produce Teflon, but no overall health problems.
The study at the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg supports DuPont's long-standing claim that ammonium perfluorooctanoate poises no human health threat, said Robert Rickard, director of DuPont's Haskell Laboratory for Health and Environmental Sciences.
The chemical, also known as PFOA or C-8, is at the center of a proposed legal settlement involving West Virginia and Ohio residents who say their drinking water has been contaminated by PFOA releases from the plant over the past 50 years. DuPont also is fighting with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the company's alleged failure to provide lab results on the chemical.
One environmental group said it doesn't agree with DuPont's interpretation that the study confirms PFOA isn't a health threat.
Lauren Sucher with the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C., said elevated cholesterol levels have been linked to heart disease.
"Elevated cholesterol is a known health threat," she said, adding that studies performed in Italy and by 3M also showed that workers exposed to the chemical have higher cholesterol levels.
Tuesday's announcement represented the first phase of company study examining the health effects of PFOA. The second phase will look at all causes of death for plant employees over the past 50 years.
DuPont's study, which tested blood and urine samples, showed that employees who had never worked near the PFOA area of the plant recorded the lowest median levels of the chemical in their blood. The median amount found in employees who worked in PFOA areas was nearly four times higher.
Aside from elevated levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, uric acid and iron, DuPont said it found no correlation between exposure to PFOA and liver functions, blood counts and cancer markers such as prostate, leukemia or multiple myeloma.
Increased cholesterol levels were noticed in employees who had PFOA levels greater than 1,000 parts per billion, the company said.
The company wants to follow up on that finding because employees with high levels of cholesterol may maintain PFOA in their systems longer than those with lower cholesterol levels, Rickard said.
The chemical is produced at a DuPont plant in Fayetteville, N.C., and shipped to the Washington Works plant. DuPont has taken samples from the North Carolina employees, but workers at the West Virginia plant were the "most appropriate population relevant to any health effects," Rickard said.
In September, DuPont and area residents entered into a proposed settlement that addresses complaints that PFOA has contaminated private wells and water sources used by Lubeck and Mason County public service districts in West Virginia, and the Little Hocking Water Association, the city of Belpre, the Tuppers Plains-Chester Water District and Pomeroy, all in Ohio.
A public hearing is scheduled for Feb. 28 in Parkersburg to finalize the settlement, which could cost the company as much as $343 million.
If the settlement is accepted, DuPont would spend an estimated $10 million to remove as much PFOA from the area's water supply as possible. It also would fund a health study for up to 80,000 current and former residents.
Rickard said the employee study would be shared with experts who will design a public health study.
DuPont and EPA have been fighting over the company's obligation to release PFOA information. Information released Tuesday was shared with EPA in November.
The federal agency has accused DuPont of failing to provide results from blood samples taken in July from 12 people living near the Washington Works plant. The agency says that three years after the residents stopped drinking from area water supplies, their blood samples still showed concentrations of PFOA averaging more than 13 times the national average.