The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a wider probe into a chemical compound used to make Teflon-coated cookware and other well known products, such as Stainmaster, Scotchgard and Gore-Tex. The chemical is known as C8, and it’s manufactured by DuPont. It’s been found in the air and water across the country. Now environmentalists are putting pressure on the EPA to ban it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has more:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency has launched a wider probe into a
chemical compound used to make Teflon-coated cookware and other well known
products, such as Stainmaster, Scotchgard and Gore-Tex. The chemical is
known as C8, and it’s manufactured by DuPont… It’s been found in the air
and water across the country. Now environmentalists are putting pressure on
the EPA to ban it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston has
more:
The EPA has launched the most extensive study yet to determine whether the
chemical C8 and similar families of chemicals cause reproductive and
developmental damage to women and girls. The 3-M company, which used to
manufacture C-8, has studied the effects of the chemical on lab rats. The
findings: rats exposed to the chemical lost weight. They experienced delayed
sexual maturation and their offspring commonly died prematurely.
DuPont company
scientist Robert Rikard, though, says the company has used C8 for more than
50-years. He says concerns about the chemical are unfounded. That’s even
though C8 belongs to a family of chemicals that some companies have stopped
manufacturing because of health concerns. 3-M stopped making its Scotchguard stain repellent
after finding one of the chemical compounds sticks around in the environment. It’s also
been found in the bloodstreams of people worldwide. The EPA doesn’t have guidelines in
place to regulate C8. And it could be months before there the agency finishes
its extensive study of the chemical compound.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.