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C8 or C-8: PFOA is perfluorooctanoic acid and is sometimes called C8. It is a man-made chemical and does not occur naturally in the environment. The "PFOA" acronym is used to indicate not only perfluorooctanoic acid itself, but also its principal salts.
The PFOA derivative of greatest concern and most wide spread use is the ammonium salt (
Ammonium perfluorooctanoate) commonly known as C8, C-8, or APFO and the chemical of concern in the Class Action suit in Ohio.

Ammonium perfluorooctanoate (APFO or C8)
CAS No. 3825-26-1. Molecular formula:

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA or C8)
CAS No: 335-67-1
. Molecular formula:

The DuPont site where APFO is used as a reaction aid is the Washington Works (Route 892, Washington, West Virginia 26181) located along the Ohio River approximately seven miles southwest of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

The Little Hocking Water Association well field is located in Ohio on the north side of the Ohio River immediately across from the Washington Works facility. Consumers of this drinking water have brought a Class Action suit against the Association and DuPont for the contamination of their drinking water with DuPont's APFO, which residents and media refer to as C8.

PFOA is used as a processing aid in the manufacture of fluoropolymers to produce hundreds of items such as non-stick surfaces on cookware (TEFLON), protective finishes on carpets (SCOTCHGUARD, STAINMASTER), clothing (GORE-TEX), and the weather-resistant barrier sheeting used on homes under the exterior siding (TYVEK).



August 16, 2004

Teflon questions

Boston Globe Editorial

There is no reason to throw out your Teflon pans, but the US Environmental Protection Agency last month opened a new chapter in society's love-hate relationship with miracle chemicals when it accused the Du Pont Co. of withholding evidence of the company's own concerns about a chemical used to make Teflon. In a response last week, Du Pont said it had met its reporting obligations and should not have to pay fines, which could reach $300 million.

The EPA has charged Du Pont with suppressing evidence that the chemical can move from a pregnant woman to her fetus and that it was found in the drinking water supply of a community near a Teflon manufacturing site in West Virginia. While the agency is right to pursue these charges against the company, it should give urgency to more investigations into the chemical's health risk to humans and into the mystery of how it has become so omnipresent in the environment.

At issue is an extremely persistent fluorine-based chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. Not only does it resist breakdown, but the usefulness of Teflon in making a wide range of products -- from pans to clothing to eyeglasses and electric wires -- means that there is a lot of PFOA around. It or other compounds from the family of perfluorated chemicals, or PFCs, have been detected in the blood of more than 90 percent of Americans and in Arctic Circle polar bears. Recently PFCs were detected in the Great Lakes, the source of drinking water for 33 million Americans and Canadians.

PFOA has been shown to cause cancer in animals, but even though it has been around for 50 years, neither the EPA nor industry has done sufficient research into its effect on humans. In the 1980s Du Pont found that a female worker exposed to the chemical gave birth to a baby with a facial defect. It concluded that this was an isolated incident and said that all its toxicological studies indicated that PFOA causes neither cancer nor birth defects in humans. It is currently doing a major epidemiological study of workers using PFOA.

PFOA does not occur naturally, so researchers suspect that it is being spread either in the manufacturing process or in the gradual release of the chemical from products as they age and wear out. In 2003, EPA cited health concerns about it in a preliminary risk assessment but did not advise the public to stop using Teflon products.

Whatever is decided about PFOA has implications for a wide range of non-Teflon products also made with PFCs, such as Gore-Tex and Stainmaster.