Ethics

            When reading ‘The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare’ article, six different levels of ethics can be found; personal, community, professional, state, federal, and corporation. Of the six levels of ethics, ethics at the corporate level were broke the most.

            For some background information, DuPont has been using a chemical commonly known as C8, or scientifically as Perflourooctanoic acid or PFOA, and PFOA was originally made by 3M. DuPont started purchasing PFOA from 3M in 1951 for use in manufacturing Teflon. PFOA was originally created by 3M four years earlier. PFOA was yet to be classified by the federal government as a hazardous substance, so how to dispose of the chemical came from 3M. One of DuPont’s first breaking of the corporate ethical code was by not following 3M’s directions of how to dispose of PFOA. It was recommended that PFOA was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste storage facilities. DuPont’s own directions were that it was not to be flushed into surface water or sewers.

However, over the decades that followed, hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA powder was disposed of through outflow pipes into Ohio River while sludge containing PFOA was dumped into digestion ponds, which seeped into the ground and into the water table. This water table supplied water to communities across Parkersburg, Vienna, Little Hocking and Lubek, totaling more than 100,000 people.

The next notable breakage of the corporate ethics was the secret conduction of medical studies for more four decades. Starting in 1961, DuPont researches found that the compound could increase the size of livers in rats and rabbits. During the 1970s, they discovered high concentrations of PFOA in the blood of factory workers at their Washington Works plant. In 1981, 3M found that ingestion of PFOA in rats lead to birth defects. DuPont wanted to test children that were born to workers in the Teflon division and found two cases of birth defects in the seven children that were born. In all three incidents, DuPont did not share their findings.

Another instance in when DuPont broke corporate ethics was during the ‘90s when DuPont knew that PFOA caused cancerous testicular, pancreatic and liver tumors in lab animals. As a result, they began looking for an alternative to PFOA. In 1993, they sent out an interoffice memo that detailed how they believe that they were able to successfully find an alternative to PFOA. However, corporate headquarters decided against it as products manufactured with PFOA were an important part of DuPont’s business, bringing in over $1 billion in revenue.

              Another major breakage, and probably the largest one was back in August of 2000. Rob Billot, who was the lawyer pursuing this case, sent his findings to Christie Whitman, administrator of the E.P.A., and John Ashcroft, the United States attorney general. To protect themselves and their interests, DuPont reacted immediately and issued a gag order against Billet to prevent his findings in the Tennant case from reaching the government. For a company to do that required a lot of guts realizing how bad it looks to the public and had a small chance of success. Luckily for Billot , a federal court denied the gag order and his letter went to the attorney general and the heads of the E.P.A.  

                                   Picture of the article talking about Billot's 'Famous Letter'

                                     Picture showing the structure of Perfluorooctanoic acid