An EPA scientific advisory panel released a draft report in the spring that said the chemical has caused tumors when fed to rats and is a "likely carcinogen in humans." But the same panel said last week that more research needs to be completed before the EPA concludes whether PFOA causes cancer.
"It's a mystery right now," said Dr. Frank Witter, medical director of labor and delivery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a partner in the research. "At some point, with more research, we may be able to say something more than 'it's just there.' But we have not finished that analysis yet." PFOA is a highly durable, man-made chemical used since the 1950s in the manufacture of Teflon nonstick pans, rain-repellent clothing, aerospace equipment, computer chips, cables, automobile fuel hoses and numerous other products. "We make a lot of chemicals that are extremely persistent, and we mass-produce them, but we never consider the life cycles of these chemicals," Halden said. "It's kind of a tragedy. In some instances, it takes years or decades before we learn of their toxicity" to people. The research project at Hopkins began in late 2004. Over five months, Goldman and her colleagues collected blood samples from the umbilical cords of 300 newborns. The researchers used an instrument called a liquid chromatography mass spectrometer to analyze the blood, and they found that 298 of the samples contained PFOA, Goldman said. Now the scientists are working with other researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a commercial lab to further scrutinize the samples and find out whether the babies' thyroid hormone levels are normal, Halden said. The researchers are also comparing PFOA levels to the birth weight of the babies, and looking at whether they were born full term. The study should be finished in a few months and then will be offered for publication in a scientific journal, Halden said. It's not clear how PFOA gets into the environment and, eventually, into people's bloodstream. The chemical can be found in many places around the planet and has even been detected in polar bears. Researchers with the Washington-based Environmental Working Group, a watchdog organization, believe the chemical may be released through the breakdown of fast-food packaging and stain-proof carpets, furniture and clothes, ending up in food, house dust, air and drinking water. But Susan Hazen, an EPA acting assistant administrator, said this is speculation. "We have no evidence at this time that routine use of consumer products is a source of exposure," Hazen said. DuPont agreed last year to pay a settlement of more than $100 million after residents living near a company Teflon plant in Parkersburg, W.Va., filed a class action suit claiming that PFOA escaped from the factory and contaminated local waters. Boothe, the DuPont manager, said PFOA clearly had leaked from the Parkersburg plant. But he said there are probably "quite a few" other sources of the chemical's escape into the environment. He said DuPont is working hard to stop all leakage of the chemical from factories. The firm has installed water discharge filters and air pollution control equipment at the Parkersburg plant and two others in Fayetteville, N.C., and Deepwater, N.J. "The EPA is working with the industry to find out what the sources of exposure are," Boothe said. Jane Houlihan, vice president for research at the Environmental Working Group, is among critics who say PFOA is dangerous and should be banned. It is disturbing, she said, that the Hopkins researchers have found the chemical in newborns. "The fact that PFOA can cross the placenta from the mother to child is very troubling, given that this is a chemical that is broadly toxic and linked to birth defects in lab animals," she said. "The time in the womb is a time of particular vulnerability to environmental chemicals." See also: The program would reduce the use of PFOA by 95% by 2010. It would eliminate production of the chemical by 2015 at the latest. That's good, because it takes the body 10 years to eliminate PFOA from the body if there's no new exposure. And since the chemical is all over the earth, we're always getting new exposures. Stopping production means that we won't be exposed to increasing amounts of PFOA. http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/11239 Carol Ann _______________________________ The Pessimist complains about the Wind; The Optimist expects it to change; The Realist adjusts the Sails. - The world needs more sailors. --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail Use Photomail to share photos without annoying attachments.
