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A
class-action lawsuit is being filed against DuPont Co.
saying the chemical giant long failed to warn consumers
on the dangers of a Teflon chemical.
Two
Florida law firms said yesterday they were filing the
suit in federal courts in eight states on behalf of 14
persons who bought and used cookware with the nonstick
Teflon. It is made using perfluorooctanoic acid and its
salts, known as PFOA, or C-8.
The
plaintiffs want DuPont to spend $5 billion to replace
the cookware, impose a Teflon warning label and create two funds to pay for
medical monitoring and more scientific research, said Alan Kluger of Miami-based
Kluger, Peretz, Kaplan & Berlin, P.L.
PFOA
also is used in many other of the company's most popular
products, such as auto fuel systems, firefighting foam,
phone cables, computer chips and clothing.
"DuPont
has known for over 20 years that the Teflon product
and the PFOA chemical it contains causes cancer in laboratory
animals," Mr.
Kluger said. "I don't have to prove that it causes cancer. I only
have to prove that DuPont lied in a massive attempt to continue selling
their product."
DuPont
spokesman Clif Webb said yesterday the Wilmington, Del.,
company "will vigorously
defend itself against the allegations raised in this lawsuit."
"Consumers
using products sold under the Teflon brand are safe," Mr. Webb
said. "Cookware coated with DuPont
Teflon nonstick coatings does not contain PFOA. This has been verified
by an independent peer reviewed study of consumer products announced
in April of 2005."
Mr.
Webb said other federal tests also "show that
nonstick coatings used for cookware sold under the Teflon brand,
do not contain any PFOA."
The
suit is being brought against DuPont under each state's
consumer-protection laws, saying PFOA causes cancer in
laboratory animals and might do the same in people. The
chemical has been in use since World War II but its long-term
effects on people are unknown.
Mr.
Kluger said DuPont has sold or licensed more than $40
billion in Teflon cookware in the past 40 years, and
people have a "right
to know that there was a possibility of risk to them and their
families."
He
said the suit was being filed initially in Florida,
California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania
and Michigan, and could spread to other states. |
