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®: CRE Regulatory Action of the Week
Dupont Ordered to
Perform Non-Validated Tests
On April 18, 2003, a West Virginia state court ordered DuPont to
pay for blood tests of perfluorooctanate acid (PFOA) in residents
near the company's Washington, West Virginia plant. DuPont is appealing
this order, which was issued in class action litigation alleging
exposure and harmful effects from PFOA releases from the plant.
CRE understands that the test that DuPont must use to comply with
the order has never been properly validated and that there are questions
regarding its accuracy and reliability. Under similar circumstances,
and in response to a Data Quality Act petition filed by CRE and
agricultural groups, EPA stated that non-validated tests for atrazine's
endocrine effects could not be used for any regulatory purpose and
additional tests for these effects should be performed once properly
validated test protocols have been developed. To their credit, DuPont
and 3M are working with CDC to validate a reproducible and reliable
tests to measure PFOA in human blood. CRE believes that, until such
tests have been developed, any PFOA testing done pursuant to the
state court order could not be considered accurate, reliable and
reproducible; therefore, such tests could not be consistent with the Data Quality Act.
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