Thursday, January 20, 2005
Chicago Tribune January 18, 2005:PARKERSBURG, W. Va. — More than 50 years after DuPont started producing Teflon near this Ohio River town, federal officials are accusing the company of hiding information suggesting that a chemical used to make the popular stick- and stain-resistant coating might cause cancer, birth defects and other ailments.
Environmental regulators are particularly alarmed because scientists are finding perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in the blood of people worldwide and it takes years for the chemical to leave the body. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported last week that exposure even to low levels of PFOA could be harmful.
With virtually no government oversight, PFOA has been used since the early 1950s in the manufacture of non-stick cookware.
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The long and mostly secret history of PFOA began to unravel down the road from DuPont's Teflon plant in a West Virginia courtroom, where a Parkersburg family began asking questions in the late 1990s about a mysterious wasting disease killing their cattle.
Jim and Della Tennant suspected the culprit might lurk in a froth-covered creek that meandered past a DuPont landfill near the Teflon plant before spilling into their pasture....
One document detailed how DuPont scientists started warning company executives to avoid human contact with PFOA as early as 1961. Industry tests later determined the chemical accumulates in the body, doesn't break down in the environment and causes ailments in animals, including cancer, liver damage and birth defects.
Recent studies have found that PFOA levels in some children are in the range of those that caused developmental problems in rats.
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If found guilty of illegally withholding information by an administrative law judge, DuPont could face more than $300 million in fines--about $100 million more than the company is estimated to make each year from products manufactured with PFOA.
DuPont already has agreed to pay up to $345 million to settle another lawsuit filed on behalf of 60,000 West Virginians and Ohioans whose drinking water is contaminated with PFOA. Much of what the public is starting to learn about the chemical comes from industry documents submitted during court proceedings.
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Among other things, the EPA accuses DuPont of failing to notify the agency when two of five babies born to plant employees in 1981 had eye and face defects similar to those found in newborn rats exposed to PFOA.
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