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ENN: Environmental News Network Page 1 of 1
Review Board Finds EPA Downplayed Potential Risks of Chemical Used for Teflon
June 30, 2005 — By Randall Chase, Associated Press
DOVER, Del. — A controversial chemical used by DuPont Co. to make the nonstick substance Teflon poses more of
a cancer risk than indicated in a draft assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency, an independent review
board has found.
The EPA stated earlier this year that its draft risk assessment of perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts found
"suggestive evidence" of potential human carcinogenicity, based on animal studies.
In a draft report released Monday, the majority of members on an EPA scientific advisory board that reviewed the
agency's report concluded that PFOA, also known as C-8, is "likely" to be carcinogenic to humans, and that the EPA
should conduct cancer risk assessments for a variety of tumors found in mice and rats.
Environmentalists hailed the report, which will be discussed by EPA officials and SAB members in a public
teleconference July 6, as an important step in holding government regulators and the Delaware -based chemical giant
accountable.
The board's findings will increase pressure on the EPA to conduct human health risk assessments for liver, breast,
pancreatic and testicular cancer, as well as PFOA's potentially toxic effects on the immune system, said Richard
Wiles, senior vice president for the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy and research organization.
"This is contrary to the recommendation of the EPA staff and is a very important conclusion," said Wiles, adding that
it would be very unlikely for the board to make any significant changes before issuing its final report for review by the
EPA.
"This makes it hard for the EPA not to move forward aggressively," he said.
Enesta Jones, a spokeswoman for the EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, said agency
officials had not reviewed the advisory board's report and do not comment on board recommendations until they are
final.
"We're still working with industry and other people to gather data that will help us better understand PFOA," she said.
DuPont officials would not comment on the report but said in a prepared statement that human health and toxicology
studies suggest that PFOA exposure does not cause cancer in humans and does not pose a health risk to the
general public.
"To date, no human health effects are known to be caused by PFOA even in workers who have significantly higher
exposure levels than the general population," the company said.
The company also said data from its employee health studies and those conducted by 3M Co., which stopped
manufacturing PFOA in 2000, "deserve greater consideration in the EPA's final risk assessment rather than relying
solely on animal testing models."
DuPont's studies, which are still ongoing, have found elevated levels of total cholesterol and fats called triglycerides
among workers exposed to PFOA, but no indication that PFOA was the cause of increased serum cholesterol and
triglycerides.
While PFOA is used to make Teflon, it is not present in Teflon itself, which is applied to cookware, clothing, car parts
and flooring. PFOA also is used to produce materials used in firefighting foam, phone cables and computer chips.
Shares of DuPont fell 25 cents to $44.69 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange
Source: Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/today_PF.html?id=8117 7/1 /2005
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ENN: Environmental News Network C-8 Page 1 of 1
EPA, DuPont Finalize Settlement over Chemical Used To Make Teflon
November 30, 2005 — By Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W. Va. — Federal regulators have reached an agreement with DuPont to settle allegations the company hid
information about the dangers of a toxic chemical known as C8 used in the manufacture of Teflon.
Lawyers for DuPont and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told an administrative law judge on Nov. 23 that they had reached a
final agreement, but needed more time to put together the paperwork. Judge Barbara A. Gunning then gave the parties until Jan. 13 to
file the formal agreement.
"The request for additional time is to accommodate EPA's procedural rules which require the Environmental Appeals Board to review
and approve any settlement reached by the parties," the EPA said Tuesday in a statement.
Officials from both the EPA and DuPont refused to release terms of the deal.
"We are not commenting on that particular issue at this time," said Robin 011is, spokeswoman for DuPont Co.'s Washington Works plant
south of Parkersburg, W.Va.
The EPA alleged that DuPont for 20 years covered up important information about C8's health effects and about the pollution of water
supplies near the company's Washington Works plant.
Under federal law, DuPont could face civil fines of more than $300 million for not reporting information that showed C8 posed
"substantial risk of injury to health or the environment." The company has set aside $15 million to cover the costs of the lawsuit,
according to corporate disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
DuPont also faces a federal criminal investigation of its actions concerning C8 pollution, the company has told shareholders. Since May,
DuPont and the EPA repeatedly have said they were close to a settlement in the civil case, but had one item left to resolve. They would
not identify that item.
DuPont has maintained that C8, also known as perfluorooctanoic acid or PFOA, has no negative health effects. In February, DuPont
settled a class-action lawsuit for $1,07.6 million brought by Ohio and West Virginia residents in 2001, alleging the Wilmington, Del. -
based company intentionally withheld and misrepresented information concerning the nature and extent of the human health threat
posed by C8.
The EPA in July 2004 filed a complaint that alleged DuPont had caused "widespread contamination" of drinking water supplies near its
Washington Works plant. The EPA also alleged DuPont never told the government the company had water tests that showed C8 in
residential supplies in concentrations greater than the company's own internal limit.
The EPA alleged DuPont withheld the results of a test showing that at least one pregnant worker from the Washington Works plant had
transferred the chemical from her body to her fetus. That information, the EPA said, supported animal tests showing that C8 "moves
across the placental barrier."
The EPA said that agency efforts to understand C8's health effects "might have been more expeditious" if DuPont had submitted the
human test results in 1981.
Shares of DuPont rose 32 cents to close at $43.43 Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange
Source: Associated Press
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ittp://www.enn.com/today_PF.html?id=9356 11/30/2005
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ENN: Environmental News Network PFOA Page 1 of 2
EPA Board Says Teflon Chemical a Likely Carcinogen
February 16, 2006 — By Randall Chase, Associated Press
DOVER, Del. — A group of scientific advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a
recommendation that a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain -resistant products should be
considered a likely carcinogen.
The approval of the EPA's Science Advisory Board is conditioned on minor clarifications being made to a draft report submitted by a
review panel, but no major changes will be made to the panel's findings.
The revisions called for by the SAB include making a cover letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson more reader -friendly and
clarifying the scope of dissent among members of the SAB panel that reviewed the EPA's draft risk assessment of perfluorooctanoic
acid, also known as C-8.
Board members also agreed that the report should clarify why some unpublished scientific studies were considered by the panel while
others weren't, and that the panel's findings should not be considered the last word on PFOA but should be updated as additional data
become available.
PFOA is a processing aid used in the manufacturing of fluoropolymers, which have a wide variety of product applications, including
nonstick cookware.
The chemical also can be a byproduct in the manufacturing of fluorotelomers used in surface protection products for applications such
as stain -resistant textiles and grease -resistant food wrapping.
Wilmington, Del. -based DuPont Co., owner of the Teflon brand, is the sole producer of PFOA in North America.
Some members of the review panel disagreed with the majority view that PFOA should be classified as a "likely carcinogen," a finding
that went beyond the EPA's own determination that there was only "suggestive evidence" from animal studies that PFOA and its salts
are potential human carcinogens.
"Are we talking two -fifths of the panel, or are we talking about a small number?" asked SAB Chairman M. Granger Morgan, head of the
department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University.
Deborah Cory-Slechta, chair of the PFOA risk assessment review panel, said dissent from the majority views of the 16-member panel
on issues it was asked to study typically was limited to three or four members.
Cory-Slechta also noted that an unpublished study from the 1980s linking PFOA to mammary tumors in laboratory rats was considered
by the panel because it was peer -reviewed within the EPA and included in the original risk assessment submitted by the agency for
review.
The same could not be said for a 2005 review sponsored by the DuPont and 3M Co. challenging the earlier study's conclusion.
"We do not feel that it rose to the same level of scrutiny as the other information we were considering," she said.
But 3M scientist John Butenhoff accused the panel of making "selective use" of information to make an unwarranted recommendation
about PFOA's potential carcinogenicity.
Robert Rickard, director of health and environmental sciences at DuPont's Haskell Laboratory, said the company had asked the review
panel after its February 2005 meeting if it would be appropriate to submit new data, and was told it could.
The only SAB member to offer significant criticism of the PFOA review panel was James Bus, a lead toxicologist for Dow Chemical Co.
Bus, who did not submit his written comments until shortly before Wednesday's meeting, said the review panel should have considered
the DuPont-3M paper, and should have offered a stronger rationale for upgrading the recommended cancer descriptor from "suggestive
evidence" to "likely carcinogen."
Johnson, the EPA administrator, is free to accept the SAB's recommendations regarding PFOA, or to reject them.
The EPA will use the report "as well as all new information that becomes available, to formulate the next steps in our continuing
assessment of these chemicals," said Oscar Hernandez, director of the risk assessment division in the EPA's Office of Pollution
Prevention and Toxics.
http://www.enn.com/today_PF.html?id=9895 2/17/2006
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ENN: Environmental News Network Page 2 of 2
Source: Associated Press
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httn://www.enn.com/todav PF.html?id=9895 2/17/2006
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