A family is urging Lowe’s to pull methylene chloride paint stripper from its shelves after their son died from inhaling its fumes in October after using the product while stripping paint from a floor.
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A family is urging Lowe’s to pull methylene chloride paint stripper from its shelves after their son died from inhaling its fumes in October after using the product while stripping paint from a floor.
Drew Wynne, 31, was stripping paint from the floor of a walk-in freezer with Goof Off, a product manufactured by W.M. Barr & Company Inc., and was found unresponsive, according to CBS News. The death certificate said Wynne was overcome by methylene chloride, a chemical commonly used in paint strippers.
Cindy and Hal Wynne, Drew’s parents, launched a Change.org petition with nonprofit Safer Chemicals Healthy Families advocating that Lowe’s phase out the products over the next six months. They are also urging the EPA to move forward with a proposed ban on methylene chloride that has been indefinitely postponed since January 2017.
Wynne’s is not the first death associated with methylene chloride. About 20 years ago, Brian Keller, 24, suffered multiple heart attacks after breathing methylene chloride vapors while stripping paint from a car. The paint stripper used by Keller, Klean Strip Aircraft Paint Remover, was also manufactured by W.M. Barr.
Keller sued W.M. Barr before his death, and won a settlement of $1.75 million, which the company paid without admitting liability.
W.M. Barr said it was not responsible for the damages, as the product’s warning label stated that it was intended “for use by professional, trained personnel using proper equipment and is not intended for sale to, or use by, the general public.”
The company said in a statement that it has worked with the Consumer Product Safety Commission since 2014 on guidelines to develop a new warning label and symbol that are now “prominently featured on the front panels of our methylene chloride products.”
“While we have always had a warning on our label, the recent tragedies have motivated us to ask what more we can do,” the company said.
When the EPA first moved to ban the methylene chloride last year, it noted that “revised labeling” was not sufficient to addressing the chemical’s risk, according to CBS News.
An estimated 32,000 workers are exposed to methylene chloride each year, as are roughly 1.3 million consumers, according to the EPA.
