Turning up the heat on Teflon

Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, Amy Culbertson
Published July 26, 2005

DuPont Co. is facing a $5 billion class-action lawsuit over the dangers of a chemical used to make Teflon. The suit was filed last week in federal courts in eight states on behalf of 14 people who bought cookware with the nonstick coating. Filed by two Florida law firms, it maintains that DuPont knew the chemical -- perfluorooctanoic acid, known as PFOA or C-8 -- causes cancer in lab animals. DuPont responds that "products sold under the Teflon brand are safe" because "cookware coated with DuPont Teflon nonstick coatings does not contain PFOA." The Environmental Working Group has commissioned its own tests, whose results can be seen on the group's Web site along with links to articles about the EPA's investigation into how PFOA has found its way into the blood of 95 percent of all Americans. In a report titled "Canaries in the Kitchen" (www.ewg.org/reports/toxicteflon/), the EWG tells us that, "in two to five minutes on a conventional stovetop, cookware coated with Teflon and other nonstick surfaces can exceed temperatures at which the coating breaks apart and emits toxic particles and gases." These gases, EWG says, are "linked to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pet-bird deaths and an unknown number of human illnesses each year."