News Coverage
Research Group Alleges Dupont Withheld Toxic Finding
Published April 13, 2003
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) alleges that the DuPont chemical company violated federal law by withholding from the government information on the health risks from perfluorochemicals (PFCs) used to make Teflon.
The environmental research organization is petitioning U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Christie Whitman to investigate the chemical giant for withholding the study from the EPA.
The EPA is currently assessing the health risks from PFCs, in particular from perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a key chemical that is used to make Teflon.
EWG recently obtained and made public analysis of a draft risk assessment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that raises concerns about the health risks of PFOA.
According to EWG, Dupont has kept secret a 22 year old company study that detected PFOA in the umbilical cord blood of one infant born to a company worker, and in the blood of another worker's baby.
EWG alleges that this same company study lists serious birth defects in two of seven babies born to a group of female Teflon plant workers, whose pregnancies were monitored by DuPont's medical staff.
In the same year, according to EWG's allegations, female workers were transferred out of DuPont's Teflon production facility in Parkersburg, West Virginia, out of concern for their exposure to PFOA.
"We suspect, but cannot prove at this point, that DuPont has been deliberately withholding this information to avoid EPA action against PFOA and its highly profitable Teflon product line," said EWG Vice President of Research Jane Houlihan. "This constitutes a serious violation of federal law that requires companies to report immediately any evidence they uncover that a chemical may pose a substantial health risk."
"More than 20 years too late, we now know that this Teflon chemical is in the blood of virtually every American," Houlihan said. "The EPA has belatedly concluded that it presents serious human health risks, in particular to women and their children."
DuPont says PFOA is not harmful to the health of any segment of the human population and that cookware sold under the Teflon brand does not contain PFOA. The company says the chemical is a process aid, but is removed in the manufacturing process.
The study, according to EWG, has never been submitted to the EPA and became public in 2002 as the result of a class action lawsuit brought by 3,000 individuals living near the Dupont Teflon production facility in Parkersburg. The plaintiffs allege that PFOA pollution from the facility has contaminated local tap water and presents serious public health risks.
PFOA has been found to accumulate in human blood and it does not appear to break down in the environment.