Albany Times Union, Jennifer Gish
Published August 2, 2005
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Don Klesa sighs at the question. He's been hearing it for years as customers stop in Different Drummer's Kitchen in Guilderland N.Y. and consider a nonstick pan.
Is it safe?
A recent Environmental Protection Agency study gives more weight to the question than ever before, but Klesa said he's still so comfortable with the safety of nonstick products such as Teflon that he gave a set of the cookware to a family member.
"There are people that come in and say, 'Should I be concerned about this?' and I tell them, 'Not if you use it properly,"' he said.
But adding legitimacy to the questions about Teflon is a panel of scientists enlisted by the EPA, which took a critical look at the wonder coating used on everything from skillets and pizza boxes to flooring and fabrics.
Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency's advisory board said that the chemical used to make coatings like Teflon is "likely" to be carcinogenic to people, and the EPA should do further studies.
It all comes down to a chemical that sounds like it came off the national spelling bee word list.
Perfluorooctanoic acid -- known as PFOA or C8 -- is a substance used in the process of making another scientific mouthful, fluoropolymers.
And fluoropolymers are super-hero kind of substances that can be used to make things fire-resistant as well as capable of repelling water, oil, stains and grease.
They're also used in the automobile, aerospace, construction, chemical processing, electronics and fabric industries.
Basically, they're everywhere.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency is trying to see whether the chemical used to make them is a problem.
Earlier this year, the EPA said preliminary studies of PFOA-spurred tumors in laboratory animals suggested the chemical might be harmful to humans. Last month's finding by a panel of scientists asked to review the EPA's work only seconded that opinion.
But where does that leave average consumers, with their stain-protected sofa, nonstick frying pans and stain-resistant pants.
David Carpenter, physician and director of the State University of New York at Albany's Institute for Health and the Environment, said he expects PFOA's to go the way of another once-useful cocktail of chemicals known as PCBs.
Polychlorinated biphenyls were once used to make hundreds of products as well, such as electrical insulators and paints. But in 1977, after finding that PCBs were making their way into the environment in harmful ways and causing cancer in lab animals, the government banned their production.
So as scientists continue to delve into the effects of PFOAs, Carpenter offers consumers his advice.
"I certainly would advise people not to purchase Teflon-coated cookware," he said, adding that he's not as concerned about an immediate danger to the people who use the pans. But buying the products only puts more PFOAs into the environment.
Carpenter said it won't be long before there's more information about Teflon. Years ago, he reviewed health studies of workers at Scotchguard-pioneer 3M, which voluntarily stopped making PFOAs in 2000.
Already, scientists have found PFOAs in the human bloodstream, so the EPA began taking a look.
While scientists such as Carpenter have hailed the latest reports, others -- including Teflon-maker DuPont Co. and even some researchers within the EPA -- have disputed the findings.
"Cookware coated with DuPont Teflon nonstick coatings does not contain PFOA. This has been verified by an independent peer-reviewed study of consumer products published in April's Environmental Science and Technology. Approved standard Food and Drug Administration tests also show that nonstick coatings used for cookware sold under the Teflon brand do not contain any PFOA," DuPont officials said in a written statement. "Like any household product, cookware coated with Teflon nonstick is safe when used properly."
Last week, the company vowed to defend itself against a $5 billion class-action lawsuit by Teflon-cookware users who say the company failed to warn them about PFOAs.
DuPont said PFOAs are simply used in the making of Teflon and are not contained within it. Carpenter, however, disputes that. He said technically the substance converts into something else during the creation of Teflon, but that it is released again as PFOA when Teflon breaks down.
It's long been known that overheating a nonstick pan and burning the finish to the point of fuming can be toxic to exotic birds. Klesa said he asks nonstick cookware buyers if they're bird-owners so he can remind them that it's important they not burn the cookware's finish.
In fact, he advises everyone not to overheat the pans, and tells them to not use metal utensils on the nonstick coating, which scrape off the finish. Basically, he said, follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Klesa said Different Drummer tends to attract more serious cooks anyway, the kind who reject nonstick pans for utilitarian reasons. And so nonstick cookware is a pretty small portion of its business.
But there are those who aren't interested in waiting for scientists to finish all their PFOA research.
Kathleen Boehning, head of the health and body care department at Honest Weight Food Co-op in Albany, said most of her clientele prefer stainless steel cookware and avoid other products that use Teflon.
"I've always had a concern ... on a gut level. I never trusted it," she said. "We are bombarded with thousands and thousands of chemicals that our ancestors never had to deal with, and then we wonder why our cancer rates keep going up."
