News Coverage
Teflon Warning Label Rejected
Proof of Danger Lacking, Panel Finds
Published July 11, 2003
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has rejected a petition by an environmental group to require health warning labels on cookware made with Teflon and other nonstick coatings.
The federal agency said the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group did not provide enough information to support its allegations that fumes emitted by coated pots and pans at high temperatures sicken people.
The commission said that the petition failed to show that toxic chemicals "are released in amounts that would be expected during a consumer's use of the product and that these amounts would cause human illness or injury."
The commission's rejection was good news for the DuPont Co., which makes Teflon, the dominant nonstick coating.
"We were pleased to learn of the commission's decision and feel that it reinforces DuPont's position that cookware made with Teflon nonstick coating is totally safe for consumer and commercial use," DuPont spokesman R. Clifton Webb said Friday.
Fluoropolymers, the class of plastics to which Teflon belongs, accounted for nearly $800 million of the company's $24.1 billion in 2002 sales. Teflon, DuPont's best-known brand, is worth considerably more through licensing to products that don't necessarily contain the material but pay to use the name. DuPont would not say how much money it gets from licensing the brand.
The commission based its rejection on information contained in the group's application and did not conduct research of its own.
However, a spokesman said the commission will continue to monitor a separate Environmental Protection Agency inquiry into whether nonstick pans emit a toxic chemical known as C-8, which is used in the manufacture of Teflon.
"We're at the beginning of this research, and, thanks to the EPA and their research, we may find some answers," commission spokesman Ken Giles said.
The EPA has said it believes C-8 does not break down in the environment, is in the blood of at least eight in 10 Americans, and cause cancers and developmental problems in laboratory rats.
The Environmental Working Group filed the petition May 15 as part of a campaign against DuPont and other makers of fluoropolymers. In addition to warning labels on nonstick cookware, the group wants the EPA to ban C-8.
"It's most ironic that the reason the [commission] feels right now that they're unable to take it up more seriously is that they don't have enough information on Teflon-related chemicals," said Lauren E. Sucher, a spokeswoman for the group. "That's exactly what the EPA is looking into."
She said the group would wait to learn more from the EPA before deciding whether to resubmit its petition to the commission. The petition contended that Teflon at routine cooking temperatures emits gases that kill pet birds and at temperatures reached by an empty pan left on a stove might sicken people with polymer fume fever, a flu-like illness.
DuPont said polymer fume fever doesn't last beyond 48 hours, has no lasting effects, and can't occur unless Teflon is heated well beyond 500F. The company has acknowledged that birds, whose lungs are more sensitive than humans', can die when exposed to Teflon cookware heated above 500F.
In a June 27 letter, the commission told Environmental Working Group officials that the evidence birds are harmed is not relevant to human health.
"You do not make any factual connection between the bird-related incidents you cite and a threat to human health," the letter said.
After reviewing its complaint files about Teflon, the commission said it found 21 complaints or incidents, including people eating Teflon that had flaked off utensils, people who inhaled Teflon fumes and a single death of a bird exposed to fumes.
"These data do not support the need for the warning label you request," the commission told the Working Group.