May 9, 2005
Union officials gather information about possible PFOA exposure; United Steelworkers of America; perfluorooctanoic acid
Hoch, G. Jeffrey
AUTHOR-ABSTRACT:
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The union representing workers in hundreds of paper manufacturing and food packaging plants across the country has launched a campaign to determine whether its members are being exposed to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and if such exposure is causing health problems.
The United Steelworkers (USW) has sent letters to more than 200 paper companies to alert them to the potential exposure danger to USW members, and has distributed surveys among its union reps to get preliminary data about the extent of PFOA exposure to workers. The union is specifically focusing on the industrial use of DuPont's commercialized PFOA product Zonyl.
PFOA, best known as a component in the manufacture of Teflon products, is an environmentally persistent chemical that has been linked with developmental impairment and is listed by EPA as a possible carcinogen. The chemical is used in paper manufacturing as a surfactant that coats paper to impart stain-resistance. Paper products treated with PFOA include food packaging.
One possible workplace exposure prevention shortfall is that the workers, and possibly even the manufacturing companies, don't even know PFOA is in the surface treatment used on the paper. Oftentimes the chemicals are mixed in a laboratory away from the manufacturing floor, or come premixed into the plant. Workers applying the surface coatings may have no idea they are being exposed to PFOA.
"I'm amazed how many people didn't even realize it was there," USW project specialist Randy Johnson said. Similarly, early results from the survey show that few workers even wear personal protective equipment when handling PFOA. "I can only remember one, off the top of my head, that had gloves on," said Johnson. "These folks now are getting MSDSs (material safety data sheets) because they're going in and asking. So this is helping the industry. I don't think a lot of the companies knew."
Johnson said that even USW workers at DuPont may be unaware of PFOA exposures. "We feel they haven't even told some of their own workers about this," he said.
After the union gets surveys into all plants that may be using PFOA, an initial summary of workplace exposures will be developed. From that, plans will be made to develop worker biomonitoring to gauge what effects, if any, PFOA may be having on the workers.
"We have to evaluate what this really means," Johnson said. "If you have direct contact with it and [the PFOA level in the blood] is higher, then it's obvious. But what if everybody's about the same in the facility? Does that mean nothing? The experts will have to tell us."
Johnson added that the union members are anxious to learn whether PFOA exposures may have impacted them. "The membership is clamoring for the testing," he said. "They want to know now, now that we've brought it to their attention."
DuPont denies harmful exposures
Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont concedes that more information is needed about the health and environmental effects of PFOA, but discounts accusations that occupational exposures might be harming workers.
Cliff Webb, DuPont's director of corporate media relations, said that PFOA is an essential compound in many industrial applications, and that DuPont is working closely with EPA on questions of PFOA safety in humans and the environment.
Webb pointed to a study released by DuPont on Jan. 11 that looked at 1,025 workers at the company's embattled Washington Works in Parkersburg, W.Va. The study found no correlation between occupational exposure to PFOA and liver function, blood counts or cancer markers. The only finding was that some workers had increased total cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
"We have been engaged in and continue to be engaged in very actively our science and technology to better understand PFOA. We certainly remain confident that based on the existing science, as we see it, that its use is safe," said Webb. "There are a number of questions that will be resolved, but we remain very confident not only about the safety of our products but also the compound itself."
DuPont shareholders at the company's annual meeting on April 27 voted 91.3% to 8.7% to support existing company policy to limit disclosure of information about the company's business, legal, environmental and health costs related to the manufacture of PFOA from 1981 through 2004, except as required by the Securities Exchange Commission and any other regulatory bodies. The motion to provide more information was brought by the DuPont Shareholders for Fair Value, which lists USW as one of its major participants.