Toxic chemicals from non-sticking frying pans!
Dupont and teflon need to pay 16 million USD for withholding health information
21.12.2005 |Sascha Gabizon
DuPont settles case on toxins· Company to pay $16.5 million
By Ken Ward Jr., Staff writer
Federal regulators revealed Wednesday that DuPont Co. withheld the results of studies that found three chemicals related to the controversial Teflon ingredient C8 to be “extremely toxic.”U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials made the disclosure as they announced a $16.5 million settlement with DuPont over allegations that the company covered up health risk associated with C8.EPA officials called the settlement — which includes $10.25 million in fines and $6.25 million in environmental projects — “unprecedented.”
“This settlement sends a strong message that companies are responsible for promptly informing EPA about risk information associated with their chemicals,” said Granta Nakayama, EPA’s assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
But EPA officials said little about the three newly disclosed studies on other, C8-like chemicals.
The agency refused to name the substances, saying that DuPont claimed the chemical identities were “confidential business information.”
“The rats in the study died,” Nakayama told reporters when asked to describe the findings of one of the DuPont reports.
EPA tucked the resolution of allegations about the three studies into a larger settlement with DuPont of an EPA complaint that the company hid from the public and regulators important information about the dangers of C8.
C8 is another name for ammonium perfluorooctanoate, or PFOA. DuPont has used it since the 1950s at its Washington Works plant south of Parkersburg to make Teflon and other similar nonstick and stain-resistant products that are widely used.
DuPont had planned to fight the EPA allegations, and on Wednesday continued to say its interpretation of legal reporting requirements “differed” from that of EPA.
DuPont says that “no human health effects are known to be caused” by C8, but adds that the company is dramatically reducing its emissions of the chemical.
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