The Dallas Express recently asked DuPont, a multinational chemical company, for comment regarding accusations made by anti-PFAS activist Diane Cotter.
However, the company’s response was only received after the publication deadline had passed and was therefore not included in the original story.
A statement from Dan Turner, director of public affairs for the company, reads:
“In 2019, DuPont de Nemours was established as a new multi-industrial specialty products company. DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA, PFOS, or firefighting foam. While we don’t comment on pending litigation matters, we believe these complaints are without merit, and we look forward to vigorously defending our record of safety, health, and environmental stewardship.”
“Our commitment to the health and safety of firefighters and emergency responders is unwavering. We work with industry organizations to help educate firefighters on how our innovative solutions help protect them from heat, flame, harmful particulates, heat stress, and other threats they face on the job,” the statement continues.
“DuPont makes fibers that are used to produce firefighter turnout gear. We do not use short or long chain PFAS in our fiber spinning process. Additionally, to the best of our knowledge, none of our ingredient suppliers add PFAS during the manufacture of their products,” the statement concludes.
When Cotter first became suspicious that something was wrong with fireman turnout gear and began her investigation, companies and the firemen’s national union consistently told her there was no cause for concern.
“They couldn’t or wouldn’t provide answers,” she said, adding that the manufacturers told her the gear was safe and PFOAs (a particular group of PFAS chemicals) were only present in harmless “trace amounts.”
As previously reported by DX, Cotter decided to run her own tests and, with the help of Graham Peaslee, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Notre Dame University, found “so much more … than trace amounts.”
Numerous lawsuits against DuPont de Nemours Inc., Chemours Co., and Corteva Inc. started over 20 years ago in West Virginia and Ohio because of alleged contamination of drinking water from the deadly carcinogen PFAS. Nearly 100 lawsuits were consolidated in a federal lawsuit. While that lawsuit was recently settled for $1.18 billion, the underlying issues have not been resolved.
New plaintiffs have popped up since then. The Cotters, other firemen, and numerous state attorneys general are currently suing over cases of cancer allegedly caused by the company’s use of PFAS.
DuPont and several of its affiliates are among 26 defendants in a case brought by Connecticut’s attorney general. The case accuses the companies of decades of deception regarding the use of PFAS.
In a statement regarding the lawsuit, DuPont issued a verbatim copy of the above-quoted statement sent to DX.