News Coverage
EPA Investigating Chemical Used In Making Teflon
Chemical Used In Manufacturing Process
Published January 25, 2005
Some potentially negative findings may stick to DuPont -- the maker of the popular cookware, Teflon.
The preliminary results are in on a recent government study that centers on the health aspects of the chemical used to make Teflon.
When you cook with Teflon, as so many consumers do, the benefits of this trusted name are obvious.
But now a key chemical that goes into making Teflon products is also making waves -- a fluorochemical known as C8, tagged some time ago by environmentalists as bad news.
"We have banned chemicals in this country that are less toxic, less persistent than C8," said Jane Houlihan, of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group.
Of all the places C8 is expected to be, it also lurks in many it shouldn't. From polar bears in Alaska, the depths of Lake Michigan, and the bloodstreams of virtually every human being tested, raising questions about its long-term effect.
Fast forward to today: The Environmental Protection Agency report has preliminary written all over it, and may raise more questions than it answers. But its headline is this: The EPA finds that "there is some evidence that PFOA (another name for C8) is carcinogenic, inducing liver tumors" in rats. The findings were hailed as significant, "but not sufficient to assess human carcinogenic potential."
Dupont responded by saying, "Although to date, no human health effects are known to be caused by PFOA," DuPont "recognizes that the presence of (it) in human blood raises questions that should be addressed."
Sue Bailey and her son, Bucky, may be the face of those questions.
Sue once worked in a plant that made Teflon, and now believes that exposure harmed her son.
"For some reason I was born with a deformity and I need to find out what caused that and I need to know what caused that," Bucky said.
DuPont says PFOA is not a health issue for the general public. The company did its own study recently on more than 1,000 workers.
It found no association between elevated PFOA levels and liver function, blood counts, prostate cancer, leukemia or multiple myeloma.
The chemical causing all the fuss here is used to make Teflon, but only in the manufacturing process. It does not make it into the final version of consumer goods, which is why DuPont has said all along that there has never been a reason for consumers to worry about this coming into their homes. Environmentalists say this is getting too close to the consumer end of the question.