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6 Years in a Row
Top rated, 2003-2008
At EWG, our team of scientists, engineers, policy experts, lawyers and computer programmers pores over government data, legal documents, scientific studies and our own laboratory tests to expose threats to your health and the environment, and to find solutions. Our research brings to light unsettling facts that you have a right to know.
Factsheet: Factsheet
From DuPont's web page about the company's actions on PFOA
November 14, 2005:
• As the global leader in fluorine chemistry, DuPont is committed to continuously evaluating the safety of its products and processes. Extensive scientific testing shows that Teflon™-branded products are safe for consumers.
From "Dupont's Troubled Chemical", in The Wilmington News Journal,
By Fred Biddle and Jennifer Goldblatt
November 23, 2003:
• Dupont has said it does not know why the chemical has become so pervasive, acknowledging C-8 has been found in the blood of the general population at a level five times the maximum the company strives to achieve in the air and water around its factories where C-8 is made or used. Dupont said, however, the C-8 levels pose no threat.
• DuPont Executives said that they don't know all the products coated with fluorinated telomers because DuPont sells to intermediaries such as paper companies, not end users such as fast-food companies. The intermediaries add DuPont coatings to their food cartons, wrappers and other products.
• Recent scientific findings show they [telomers] break down into C-8. Scientists, including Dupont's, are baffled about how that occurs. "If you're asking me: Is that transformation possible? I guess the answer to that question would yes, it's possible" said Robert Ritchie, a DuPont director of planning and technology. Company scientists also said they don't know what chemical reactions occur to telomer-coated products as they are used and thrown away, one focus of the EPA's inquiry.
• Ritchie said that any C-8 release would be "very, very small" because of the small amount of fluorinated telomers used to coat any item. "If we had any reason to believe that was a safety issue for fluorinated telomers-based products, we wouldn't have commercialized them," Ritchie said.
• Telomers would not cause heath effects under normal uses," said R. Clifton Webb, a spokesman for DuPont. "Under normal uses, telomers are added in such small amounts to finished consumer products that it is not probable for a consumer to ingest or absorb these materials in the body at a dose that would cause a health concern."
