EPA charges DuPont hid Teflon's risks

[CarpeVeritas]

EPA charges DuPont hid Teflon's risks
U.S. orders study on health perils of key chemical

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501180271jan18,1,1986717.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true


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, rain-repellent clothing and hundreds of other products. The EPA says at this point there is no reason for consumers to stop using those items. But so many unresolved questions remain about PFOA that the agency is asking an outside panel of experts to assess the risks.

"The fact that a chemical with those non-stick properties nonetheless accumulates in people was not expected," said Charles Auer, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics...


DuPont?
put the public at risk in the name of profit?

naaaaahhhh, they'd never do something like that.

(we purged our house of teflon a few months back)

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1. duplicate topic, please discuss here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1161851