Internal Report Suggests Risks of Teflon Chemical

An internal report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows that a chemical used in the making of Teflon products at DuPont plants might be harmful to girls and women of childbearing age. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports the study runs contrary to what the company has been telling people who drink the water and breathe the air near one of its plants:

Transcript

An internal report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows that a chemical used in
the making of Teflon products at DuPont plants might be harmful to girls and women of
childbearing age. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Natalie Walston reports, the study runs
contrary to what the company has been telling people who drink the water and breathe the air
near one of its plants:


The draft of the EPA study wasn’t meant to be released to the public, but was obtained anyway
by a group that monitors federal environmental policy. It was then taken and studied by the
Washington D.C. based Environmental Working Group. That group’s scientists say the findings
are alarming. They say it shows lab rat pups exposed to the chemical C8 commonly died days
after being born. Also, the exposed rats had lower weight body organs, including smaller
“master gland” or pituitary glands, which scientists say can be a precursor to developing cancer.
Jane Houlihan, Vice President of Research at the Environmental Working Group, says the
problems found in rats translate to problems such as birth defects and possibly cancer for people
who breathe in the C8.


“Um, the EPA’s risk-assessment was pretty astounding in that they found that people’s exposures
to C8 are much much closer to the levels that harm animals than what the EPA would normally
like to see. It was a big surprise that the human population is widely contaminated with C8 and
that those exposures, particularly for women and young girls, is in a range that sets off all kinds
of alarm bells relative to the levels that are known to harm lab animals.”


The concern is that C8 builds up in the blood and it doesn’t break down in the body or in the
environment very easily. It’s primarily an airborne chemical that’s closely related to chemicals
once used to make Scotchguard fabric protector. The 3M Company, which makes Scotchguard,
stopped manufacturing C8 three years ago, but DuPont makes it at a plant in North Carolina.
DuPont still uses the chemical at its West Virginia plant to make Teflon-coated products. The
Ohio EPA is concerned that testing done by DuPont shows levels have been at least three times as
high as the company’s standards. But, the EPA has no standards of its own in place. DuPont has
put in pollution control devices to cut down on C8. But the Environmental Working Group’s
Houlihan says it’s highly likely the air and water are still laden with C8 because the chemical is so
persistent.


“C8’s not like any other environmental pollutant. When we banned PCBs and DDT a quarter of a
century ago, we’ve seen levels of those chemicals decline in the environment because they break
down. C8 is really different.”


That’s just what people who live near DuPont’s Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, West
Virginia are afraid of. The village of Little Hocking, which is across the Ohio River from the
plant is a cluster of small houses, a general store and a tiny post office.


(sounds of her answering phone)


That’s where Judy Pashun works as Postmaster.


“When I found out about the Little Hocking Water Company, I quit drinking the water here at
work, so I bring water here to drink.”


Pashun is referring to the Little Hocking Water Authority, which supplies water to some 12,000
people in the southern Ohio area, all of whom are involved in a class action lawsuit against
DuPont. DuPont has said in the past and keeps on saying that levels of C8 are in the water, but
aren’t at levels high enough to cause concern. The water company’s general manager, Bob
Griffin, begs to differ. He says high concentrations of C8 ride over to southern Ohio on the
prevailing wind and settle in the company’s well fields.


“People that live in the community could have twice as much C8 in their blood than somebody
that works at DuPont. I mean, there’s people that work at DuPont that said they’ve got so many
parts per million in their blood. Now when we talk about what’s in the water is parts per billion,
but people that work there actually have parts per million.”


DuPont, on the other hand, disagrees with Griffin and the Environmental Working Group’s
interpretation of the internal EPA study. Its toxicologists argue that C8 has no known adverse
affects to human health. Robert Rikard is a company scientist. Rikard, in an interview conducted
before the EPA’s study was leaked to the media, said the public’s concern about and the media
attention to C8 is unfounded.


“There is a lot known about this compound. We’ve had over 50 years of experience, and we’ve
closely monitored it for many, many years. And, all of the data would indicate there is no known
human health effects and no known environmental effects with this compound.”


And, DuPont says the report findings were prematurely leaked to the media. A company news
release reminds the media that the document was, quote, an internal and deliberative draft and,
therefore, not subject to the Freedom of Information act, which requires that documents be made
public.


Still, this problem has raised a wider question about the use of Teflon and other products, because
it’s not just a problem confined to people living near DuPont plants. The Environmental Working
Group says the EPA needs to move quickly to ban the chemical C8 and similar families of
chemicals because traces of the chemicals have been found on produce such as apples and green
beans in grocery stores throughout the country.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Natalie Walston.