Panel's Report Connects C8 More Strongly to Cancer

Columbus Dispatch, Spencer Hunt
Published June 28, 2005

A chemical DuPont uses to make Teflon is a "likely" cancer risk for humans, according to a panel of scientists. A draft report the panel posted on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Web site yesterday calls perfluorooctanoic acid, more commonly known as PFOA or C8, a "likely carcinogen" because past studies have linked it to cancer in lab animals. An earlier EPA study had found "suggestive evidence" of a cancer risk. Neither the agency nor its panel of independent experts said C8 is a definite threat, but the panel said in its report that the EPA must do more work to find out. "The available animal data indicate a carcinogenic potential for PFOA in humans," it said. EPA officials said the report is not final and declined to comment. DuPont, which uses C8 to put Teflon coatings on everything from nonstick pans to clothes, called the report "one step" in a process to assess C8's effects on people. "The weight of evidence suggests that PFOA exposure does not cause cancer in humans, and does not pose a health risk to the general public," the company said in a statement. The EPA's Scientific Advisory Board is a group of independent scientists and experts that review the agency's work and findings. The board has been looking through the agency's conclusions on C8 since January. That month, the EPA found a link between C8 and higher cholesterol in humans. Where cancer was concerned, officials said animal tests were harder to interpret. Though studies show that C8 can remain in humans for years, male lab rats can clear it out of their bodies in weeks. Rats' health problems began at doses hundreds of times higher than the level of C8 found in people across the United States. The advisory board's 31-page report said the EPA understated the cancer risk and should assess the risk to people. Richard Wiles, vice president of the Environmental Working Group in Washington, said EPA officials would have stopped studying C8 if the advisory board agreed that there was only "suggestive evidence" of a cancer risk. The board will discuss its draft findings during a July 6 public hearing in Washington. The agency's review is one of a growing number of problems DuPont faces concerning C8. They include: * Millions of dollars in potential fines for not reporting internal health studies to the EPA. * A subpoena delivered in May by the U.S. Justice Department demanding internal documents and studies on C8. * An agreement in September to pay as much as $343 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 80,000 Ohio and West Virginia residents whose water supplies were contaminated with C8 from the company's Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, W.Va. Harry Deitzler, a plaintiff's attorney in the suit, said a huge health study of C8's effects on those residents that was ordered under the settlement could begin as early as July 25.