Teflon Safety Gets Closer Look

EPA Expert Panel Preliminary Finding: PFOA a 'Likely Carcinogen'

WebMD, Daniel DeNoon
Published July 11, 2005

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD Does a chemical used to make Teflon hurt people's health? There soon may be an answer. People living near DuPont plants in Ohio and West Virginia will be offered free screening tests to see whether a chemical called PFOA is affecting their health. DuPont is using $70 million paid to settle lawsuits filed by its plants' neighbors to pay for the tests. Plaintiffs claimed the company deliberately withheld information and misled people about the health threat posed by PFOA. A separate study, to be paid for by DuPont and conducted by independent researchers, will look for evidence linking PFOA in drinking water to health effects. If proven, DuPont must pay for medical monitoring. Robert Rickard, PhD, DuPont's chief toxicologist, says PFOA poses no known health threat. "There is an extensive database, both in toxicology studies and in worker studies," Rickard tells WebMD. "The workers had the highest potential exposure of any population -- and there are no known health effects of PFOA in this worker population. We are in the process of conducting the largest study to date on workers and we have not found any effects associated with PFOA, other than a slight increase in cholesterol that may or may not be caused by PFOA." Not so says toxicologist Tim Kropp, PhD, senior scientist with the watchdog group Environmental Working Group. "PFOA is the most persistent chemical we know of," Kropp told WebMD in a January 2005 interview. "And it affects an amazing array of organs: liver, kidneys, some evidence in animals of neurological effects; it affects cholesterol and fat processing, pancreas, and mammary glands. In addition to that, these compounds cause four different types of cancer in animals. If you stack PFOAs up against dioxins and other contaminants, it looks bad. Everyone needs to take this seriously."