Overview

Dr. Bruce Karrh served as DuPont's Vice President of Safety, Health and Environmental Affairs from the late 1970s through the 1990s, a period during which DuPont conducted extensive internal toxicology studies on perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8), a synthetic chemical used in the production of Teflon and other fluoropolymer products at DuPont's Washington Works plant near Parkersburg, West Virginia. Under Karrh's oversight, DuPont's internal research documented serious health effects from PFOA exposure as early as the 1960s and 1970s. Company scientists found that PFOA accumulated in workers' blood, caused liver damage in animal studies, and was linked to birth defects in children of female workers at the Washington Works facility. A 1981 internal DuPont study found that two of seven children born to women working in the Teflon division had birth defects, including one with eye and tear duct deformities consistent with PFOA exposure seen in animal studies. Despite these findings, DuPont did not disclose the results to workers or regulators. Karrh, as the senior executive responsible for environmental and health affairs, was in a position to know about and acted on these internal studies. Internal company documents later revealed in litigation showed that DuPont's corporate medical department under Karrh's purview tracked worker blood PFOA levels and knew the chemical was bioaccumulating in employees and in the water supply surrounding the Parkersburg plant. By the mid-1980s, DuPont knew that PFOA had contaminated the drinking water of tens of thousands of residents in the mid-Ohio Valley. Rather than disclose the contamination, the company continued production and disposed of PFOA-laden waste in unlined landfills and directly into the Ohio River. The C8 Science Panel, an independent epidemiological study panel created as part of a 2005 class-action settlement, later found probable links between PFOA exposure and six diseases: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, and pregnancy-induced hypertension. DuPont ultimately faced thousands of personal injury lawsuits and paid hundreds of millions in settlements. The EPA fined DuPont $16.5 million in 2005 for failing to report PFOA health risks under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 8(e), which requires companies to report substantial risk information to the EPA. It was the largest civil administrative penalty the EPA had ever assessed at the time.

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Sources & Documentation

4 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports