UNFAIR BUSINESS PRACTICES
 

Allegations Raised In The Class Action Lawsuits Filed Against E.I. DuPont De Nemours & Company Over the Manufacture, Advertising, and Sale of “Teflon®” Nonstick Cookware Coating

The litigation alleges that Teflon® poses undisclosed health and safety risks for consumers.  Specifically, as Teflon® is heated, it releases (or “off-gasses”) certain potentially harmful chemicals as it reaches and passes certain temperature thresholds on the stovetop.  These effects begin at just 464ºF, and by 680°F, Teflon® coated pans can release up to six potentially harmful chemicals, including among others tetrafluorethylene (TFE), which the National Toxicology Program considers to be a “reasonably anticipated” human carcinogen, perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA), which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (the EPA) Science Advisory Board termed a “likely” carcinogen in humans, and hexafluoropropene (HFP) and difluoroacetic acid (DFA), both of which are kidney toxins for animals.  Simply put, the higher a Teflon® coated pan is heated, the greater the number of harmful chemicals it may release.   

Further, the litigation alleges that DuPont knew or should have known about the potential dangers of its Teflon® product, which it first began selling commercially in 1946.  For example, in 1981 DuPont was advised that PFOA may cause birth defects in laboratory animals and knew (because of studies on its own workers) that PFOA was transmitted from exposed pregnant women to their babies.  When this information – which the EPA considers to be “known toxicological information” regarding PFOA about which DuPont was aware – was finally (and belatedly) disclosed to the EPA, it prompted the agency to say that PFOA “presents a substantial risk of injury to human health.”   

In fact, the EPA sued DuPont over its failure to disclose the information known to it about the chemicals in Teflon® for two decades (from 1981 to 2001); DuPont settled that litigation by paying the largest civil administrative fine ever paid (approximately $16.5 million total) for violation of the federal environmental statutes.  In addition, in May 2005, the U.S. Justice Department’s Environmental Crimes Section obtained a federal grand jury subpoena against DuPont concerning its use of PFOA.   

Despite mounting contrary evidence, DuPont has continued to maintain that its Teflon® product, and Teflon®’s chemical components (such as PFOA), are safe.  DuPont has done so on its website, in quotes picked up by media outlets, and in full-page advertisements taken out in major newspapers, including the Boston Globe.  DuPont has refused to acknowledge the risks and harms presented by Teflon® coated cookware, to pull Teflon® from the market as a cookware coating, or to create specific consumer warnings and to require its Teflon® licensees to employ them.
 

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