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Daikin Industries Chairman Noriyuki Inoue. Photo taken from Daikin Industries' website.<\/p>\n \n
When did Daikin Industries first learn PFOA was dangerous?<\/p>\n
If the company had quickly realized the risk and taken appropriate countermeasures, maybe high levels of PFOA wouldn\u2019t have been found in the blood of nearby residents.<\/p>\n
Through records from hearings with Daikin by the Osaka Prefectural Government obtained through a freedom of information request, as well as additional reporting, Tansa learned the company had been aware of PFOA\u2019s toxic nature since at least 2002.<\/p>\n
In May 1999, Daikin Industries\u2019s then President Noriyuki Inoue \u2014 who, at age 86, currently serves as chair of the board \u2014 became a representative director of the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives. Inoue had previously been deputy director of the Yodogawa Plant, and in 1973 he became head of its newly established community affairs section, which dealt with pollution near the plant. He was named president in 1994.<\/p>\n
An interview with Inoue ran in the September 1999 issue of the magazine \u201cexaminer\u201d following his appointment to the Kansai Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fluorochemicals division, which makes up 20% of our sales, is doing well and has the second largest market share in the world,\u201d Inoue said in the interview, explaining that Daikin\u2019s sales and profits had increased in all five of the previous years. \u201cWe have many large investment projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daikin\u2019s fluorochemical division is the part of the company that manufactures PFOA. The Yodogawa Plant began developing fluorine compounds in the 1940s, and, in the late 1960s, Daikin successfully commercialized PFOA. With the dream of \u201ccatching up to and overtaking\u201d American chemical manufacturers, who had more advanced technologies, Daikin grew to become one of the eight largest PFOA manufacturers in the world.<\/p>\n
Another interview with Inoue ran in the March 2002 issue of \u201cexaminer,\u201d and, again, he expressed great enthusiasm for the fluorochemical division.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our current, highly competitive era where companies either make it or bust, especially in the air-conditioning and fluorochemical businesses, Daikin will fall among the latter if we aren\u2019t number one or number two in the world. I think it\u2019s important to set stretch goals \u2014 to use the term coined by former General Electric CEO Jack Welch \u2014 in other words, goals so high they might seem impossible to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daikin was riding high, but, across the Pacific, a situation was developing that would ultimately end the company\u2019s run as a major PFOA manufacturer.<\/p>\n
In June 2000, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), citing health concerns, announced the need for an investigation into PFOA\u2019s effects on the human body. Two years later, 3M, another major American PFOA manufacturer, discontinued production of the chemical due to its danger to human health.<\/p>\n
3M had manufactured PFOA since the 1950s. However, both 3M and DuPont, which also manufactured the chemical, began suspecting PFOA to be toxic following joint animal experiments in the 1960s. A 1978 study of the effect of the chemical on monkeys found that monkeys administered the experiment\u2019s highest level of PFOA died within a month. The corporations made only some of their findings public.<\/p>\n
However, in 1993, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that PFOA exposure can cause prostate cancer after examining employees at a 3M plant.<\/p>\n
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