Freon Endangers Ozone Layer, Increases Risk of Skin Cancer, NRDC Charges

In November, the Natural Resources Defense Council petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission for an immediate ban on spray cans using freon (a DuPont tradename) and similar fluorocarbons as a propellant. NRDC cited growing scientific evidence that the gases released from aerosol cans are causing gradual deterioration of the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. The ozone layer, about 10 to 20 miles up, shields the earth from ultraviolet radiation, a major cause of skin cancer. A study conducted by Dr. Michael McElroy of Harvard University predicted that if the use of freon continues at present rates, the ozone layer will be diminished by ten percent within fifteen years, and that as a result, the incidence of skin cancer will rise by 20 percent. By the year 2000, the study estimated, the ozone layer will have been reduced by 14 percent.

The fluorocarbons used in aerosol cans were originally thought to be ideal propellants, owing to their chemical stability. In the past five years, use of freon has increased some 15 percent a year, in spray cans of cosmetics, paints, and a variety of household products. In 1972, 1 1/2 billion aerosol cans of cosmetics were sold, and some 700 million cans of household products. A million tons of freon are released into the atmosphere each year. Recently, however, scientists discovered that at stratospheric levels, ultraviolet light causes fluorocarbons to break down, releasing free chlorine atoms which in turn break down the ozone. The Atomic Energy Commission has found fluorocarbons in the stratosphere from as far north as Greenland to as far south as Argentina. The sharp decrease in the ozone layer began in 1971, after ten years in which the density of the gas increased. That increase is attributed to the 1963 ban on nuclear testing in the atmosphere.

Skin cancer is most prevalent among whites, and its incidence is closely related to exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 600,000 cases of skin cancer occur each year in the United States. In part because the concentration of ozone decreases nearer the equator, and in part because warmer climates encourage greater exposure to the sun, skin cancer rates are sharply higher in the southern states than in the north. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, for example, almost one of every 250 residents develops skin cancer each year, an incidence more than three times that of Iowa. The disease is fatal in approximately four percent of all cases.

NRDC petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission under § 10 of the Consumer Product Safety Act of 1971¹ which allows interested persons, including consumers and consumer organizations, to file petitions for the issuance, amendment, or revocation of a "consumer product safety rule." The Commission may hold hearings or conduct investigations as it deems appropriate, but must either grant or deny the petition within 120 days. It must ban any product found to present an "unreasonable risk of injury."

NRDC's petition followed by a month the report of a five-man panel of the National Academy of Sciences, urging an extensive investigation of the fluorocarbon problem. Dr. Donald Hunten, the physicist who was chairman of the group, said it is "obvious" that manufacture of the propellants should be halted. He stated that even a complete ban on freon by 1978 would not prevent a three percent reduction in the ozone layer by 1990, with a concomitant two percent increase in skin cancer among light-skinned people.

(Still another hazard to the ozone layer is the possibility that a nuclear war might greatly reduce the density of the gas, according to Dr. Fred Ikle, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In addition to its more obvious effects, such a war would probably cause increased skin cancer and possibly also a massive disruption of the plant-to-animal food chains on which human existence is based. The Defense Department has responded that while a nuclear war might reduce ozone levels by 50 to 75 percent, there is no proof that this would endanger life on earth, a position which the New York Times described editorially as preposterous.²)

The fluorocarbon industry sees things differently. A spokesman for E.I du Pont de Nemours & Co., the largest manufacturer of the gas, described as speculative the evidence of freon's effect on ozone in the stratosphere. He warned of massive economic dislocation if the $8 billion industry, involving some 200,000 workers, is curtailed.

NRDC filed its petition in mid-November, so that the government has until mid-March to respond. What is at stake, if the projections of NRDC's scientists are correct, is the possibility of 60,000 to 100,000 additional cases of skin cancer annually by 1990, and 100,000 to 300,000 additional cases by the year 2000. The case will provide a further test of the adequacy of current standards of proof in cases involving both an uncertain danger to the public health, on the one side, and an economically powerful industry on the other.

1. 15 U.S.C. § 2059.

2. New York Times, Nov. 12, 1974, p. 38.