| The DuPont Company may be in serious trouble for covering up problems related to birth defects in their female
employees.
DuPont at Washington, Wood County is reportedly facing "tens of millions of
dollars" in fines for their failure to disclose key information about the potential
dangers of the chemical C8 used in the manufacture of Teflon.
The fines may be the largest ever given to an American corporation.
DuPont did not report to the EPA a 1981 study that found birth defects in
babies born to women employees at their plant just outside of Parkersburg who
were exposed to C8.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce that it has
cited DuPont for violations of toxic reporting and hazardous-waste laws.
DuPont owns three plants in West Virginia with the Wood County facility employing 2,200 people, the largest
DuPont plant in the world.
The company has been facing a class-action lawsuit where thousands of neighbors of DuPont's Washington plant
claim that the company poisoned their air and drinking water with harmful levels of C8. That trial is scheduled for
September.
The plant has used C8 for more than 50 years in the production of Teflon.C8.
A study made public through litigation against DuPont, indicates that DuPont measured C8 in the blood of eight
pregnant women employed at the Parkersburg plant, according to a letter to former EPA administrator Christine
Todd Whitman.
The document indicates DuPont found "quantifiable levels" of C8 in the blood of seven of the eight women tested, at
concentrations ranging up to 2.5 parts per million. The company also found C8 in umbilical cord blood from one
baby at a concentration of 0.55 parts per million, and in the blood of another baby at a concentration of 0.012 parts
per million.
"The study documentation shows that two of the seven women gave birth to babies with birth defects, one an
'unconfirmed' eye and tear duct defect, and one a nostril and eye defect," according to the document.
In response, DuPont reportedly reassigned 50 women at the plant to reduce C8 exposure.
DuPont lawyer Andrea Malinowski wrote that the 1981 study "does not in any way suggest that (C8) is the cause of
any adverse effect."
This week, a group of Parkersburg residents have joined with the Environmental Working Group to urge the EPA to
seek the maximum fines.
The group said "DuPont made 17 years worth of profit from Teflon while illegally suppressing studies on the health
effects of a chemical used in its manufacture, even ignoring an amnesty window in 1991 to submit such information,"
the letter said. "Most recently, one of the company's top legal officers secretly acknowledged that the company did
not have the scientific basis for its assurances to people near its plant that the Teflon chemical contamination of their
drinking water was harmless."
DuPont has won a number of local court battles regarding the civil actions, one of which had called for the testing of
citizens in the community.
Company lawyers had sought to remove Circuit Judge George Hill from the case, indicating he was biased in the case
against the company.
| 
