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Steelworkers Charge DuPont with Hiding Information on Health Effects of Teflon Chemical

For Immediate Release                                       December 11, 2006

PITTSBURGH - The United Steelworkers (USW) is condemning DuPont (NYSE:DD) for contaminating employees around the country with some of the highest levels of the Teflon chemical, PFOA, yet to be found in human blood, while denying workers information on potential health effects.

DuPont is refusing to release certain data the company collected on Parkersburg, West Virginia employees to a court-appointed panel of scientists who are investigating potential health effects suffered by thousands of Ohio and West Virginia residents after drinking water was contaminated by PFOA.  DuPont has also failed to release the study and other PFOA data to a USW local union after it made a formal request.

“We condemn DuPont’s refusal to make the study available to its employees and the public,” said Ken Test, Chairman of the USW DuPont Council. “DuPont is obviously hiding something.”

DuPont informed its USW-represented Deepwater, New Jersey plant employees on November 14 that levels of PFOA in their blood were as high as 6330 parts per billion (ppb), thousands of times higher than the average level of 5 ppb in the general population. 

“If PFOA is not harmful as DuPont keeps telling the world, then why the secrec