OT: Teflon is Forever

[Sheri Nakken]

"It is all the more ironic, then, that our favorite metaphor for bad press
that won't stick comes from a product whose toxic legacy will stick around
forever. Teflon, it turns out, gets its nonstick properties from a toxic,
nearly indestructible chemical called pfoa, or perfluorooctanoic acid. Used
in thousands of products from cookware to kids' pajamas to takeout coffee
cups, pfoa is a likely human carcinogen, according to a science panel
commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency. It shows up in
dolphins off the Florida coast and polar bears in the Arctic; it is
present, according to a range of studies, in the bloodstream of almost
every American—and even in newborns (where it may be associated with
decreased birth weight and head circumference). The nonprofit watchdog
organization Environmental Working Group (ewg) calls pfoa and its close
chemical relatives "the most persistent synthetic chemicals known to man."
And although DuPont, the nation's sole Teflon manufacturer, likes to chirp
that its product makes "cleanup a breeze," it is now becoming apparent that
cleansing ourselves of pfoa is nearly impossible."

Excellent article:

May/June 2007 Issue

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... html?welco
me=true

Teflon is Forever
For decades, DuPont has sold the answer to crud, gunk, and grime. What the
company didn't advertise was that its nonstick wonder sticks—to us.

Leslie Savan
May/June 2007 Issue

Congresswoman Pat Schroeder was scrambling eggs, one day back in 1984, when
she coined one of the most durable political metaphors of our time. Her
1984 description of Ronald Reagan as "the Teflon President" became instant
vernacular, attaching itself to everyone from "Teflon Tony" Blair to
"Teflon Don" John Gotti.

It is all the more ironic, then, that our favorite metaphor for bad press
that won't stick comes from a product whose toxic legacy will stick around
forever. Teflon, it turns out, gets its nonstick properties from a toxic,
nearly indestructible chemical called pfoa, or perfluorooctanoic acid. Used
in thousands of products from cookware to kids' pajamas to takeout coffee
cups, pfoa is a likely human carcinogen, according to a science panel
commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency. It shows up in
dolphins off the Florida coast and polar bears in the Arctic; it is
present, according to a range of studies, in the bloodstream of almost
every American—and even in newborns (where it may be associated with
decreased birth weight and head circumference). The nonprofit watchdog
organization Environmental Working Group (ewg) calls pfoa and its close
chemical relatives "the most persistent synthetic chemicals known to man."
And although DuPont, the nation's sole Teflon manufacturer, likes to chirp
that its product makes "cleanup a breeze," it is now becoming apparent that
cleansing ourselves of pfoa is nearly impossible.

DuPont has always known more about Teflon than it let on. Two years ago the
epa fined the company $16.5 million—the largest administrative fine in the
agency's history—for covering up decades' worth of studies indicating that
pfoa could cause health problems such as cancer, birth defects, and liver
damage. The company has faced a barrage of lawsuits and embarrassing
studies as well as an ongoing criminal probe from the Department of Justice
over its failure to report health problems among Teflon workers. One
lawsuit accuses DuPont of fouling drinking water systems and contaminating
its employees with pfoa. Yet it is still manufacturing and using pfoa, and
unless the epa chooses to ban the chemical, DuPont will keep making it,
unhindered, until 2015.

The Teflon era began in 1938, when a DuPont chemist experimenting with
refrigerants stumbled upon what would turn out to be, as the company later
boasted, "one of the world's slipperiest substances." DuPont registered the
Teflon trademark in 1944, and the coating was soon put to work in the
Manhattan Project's A-bomb effort. But like other wartime innovations, such
as nylon and pesticides, Teflon found its true calling on the home front.
By the 1960s, DuPont was producing Teflon for cookware and advertising it
as "a housewife's best friend." Today, DuPont's annual worldwide revenues
from Teflon and other products made with pfoa as a processing agent account
for a full $1 billion of the company's total revenues of $29 billion.

Teflon is not actually the brand name of a pan; it's the name of the
slippery stuff that DuPont sells to other companies. Marketers deploy the
trademark as a near-mystic incantation, a mantra for warding off filth:
Clorox Toilet Bowl Cleaner With Teflon® Surface Protector, Dockers Stain
Defender™ With Teflon®, Blue Dolphin Sleep 'N Play layette set "protected
with Teflon fabric protector." In one TV spot, an infant cries until Dad
sets him down on a Stainmaster (with Advanced Teflon® Repel System) carpet,
where baby, improbably, falls into blissful slumber.

Breathing in dust from Teflon-treated rugs or upholstery as they wear down
is one way we may be ingesting pfoa. Food is another: Pizza-slice paper,
microwave-popcorn bags, ice cream cartons, and other food packages are
often lined with Zonyl, another DuPont brand. Technically, Zonyl does not
contain pfoa, but it is made with fluorotelomer chemicals that break down
into pfoa. Regardless of how it gets into our bodies, once there, pfoa
stays—quietly accumulating in our tissues, for a lifetime.

Teflon is not the only nonstick, non-stain brand that has turned out to be
stickier than advertised. Scotchgard and Gore-Tex, to name just two, are
also made with pfoa or other perfluorochemicals (pfcs). Last year the epa
hit the 3M corporation, maker of Scotchgard, with a $1.5 million penalty
for failing to report pfoa and pfc health data. Chemicals similar to pfoa
have recently turned up in water supplies of suburban Minneapolis and St.
Paul, near 3M facilities.

Unlike DuPont, though, 3M no longer sells pfoa: In the late 1990s, when
testing blood samples for a health study, the company found pfoa even in
the "clean" samples from various U.S. blood banks that it had planned to
use as controls. "They realized they were contaminating the entire
population," says Richard Wiles, the Environmental Working Group's
executive director. In 2000, 3M announced that it was discontinuing pfoa
production.

When 3M got out, DuPont, which until then had bought its pfoa from 3M,
jumped in. Now the company's bottom line depends on whether its product's
mythic reputation—Teflon's own Teflon—remains intact.

So far, it seems to be holding. Nonstick pots and pans account for 70
percent of all cookware sold. "Amazingly enough, all the publicity has had
no impact on sales," says Hugh Rushing, executive vice president of the
Cookware Manufacturers' Association. "People read so much about the
supposed dangers in the environment that they get a tin ear about
it"—though sales of cast-iron skillets, touted as a safer alternative, have
doubled in the last five years, in large part because of "the Teflon
issue," according to cast-iron manufacturer Lodge.

In fact, nonstick pans are not a major source of exposure to pfoa, because
almost all of the chemical is burned off during manufacture. Still, when
overheated, Teflon cookware can release trace amounts of pfoa and 14 other
gases and particles, including some proven toxins and carcinogens,
according to the Environmental Working Group's review of 16 research
studies over some 50 years. At 500 degrees, Teflon fumes can kill birds; at
660, they can cause the flulike "polymer fume fever" in humans. Even at
normal cooking temperatures, two of four brands of frying pans tested in a
study cosponsored by DuPont gave off trace amounts of gaseous pfoa and
other perfluorated chemicals.

A $5 billion multistate class-action lawsuit representing millions of
Teflon cookware owners alleges that DuPont has known for years that its
coatings could turn toxic at temperatures commonly reached on the stove,
but failed to tell consumers. DuPont's website recommends not heating
Teflon above 500 degrees (so it doesn't "discolor or lose its nonstick
quality") and advises that when overheated, "nonstick cookware can emit
fumes that may be harmful to birds, as can any type of cookware preheated
with cooking oil, fats, margarine and butter." But who knows how hot a pan
gets, and who looks out for birds before fixing dinner? Even while
researching this story, I left a nonstick skillet on the stove. The fumes
smelled like fried computer, and I vowed not to do it again. But I also
decided to go with the hazardous-waste flow, figuring, "We're all toxic
dumps anyway." (ewg studies have found a "body burden" of 455 industrial
pollutants, pesticides, and other chemicals in the bodies of ordinary
Americans.) With toxic substances unavoidable, or at least key to
convenience, we run our own self-interested cost-benefit analyses. I throw
out the Teflon-coated Claiborne pants my mother-in-law sent my son, but I
let him play on swing sets made of arsenic-treated wood because I don't
want to face a tantrum.

Still, consumers of Teflon pans and pants (not to mention the mascara,
dental floss, and other personal care products made slippery with a touch
of Tef) have it relatively safe. The people who make the stuff, and who
live near the plants, face far worse dangers. The granddaddy of trouble
plants—and the one inspiring a range of lawsuits—is DuPont's plant near
Parkersburg, West Virginia. Residents there have sued DuPont for polluting
their drinking water with pfoa, and in March 2005, DuPont settled the case
for $107 million. If an independent science panel finds links between pfoa
and various health problems, DuPont will have to pay up to an additional
$235 million to monitor the health of 70,000 people for years to come.
Meanwhile, as part of the court order, the company is supplying the entire
population of one nearby town with bottled drinking water.

The epa's $16.5 million fine against DuPont for concealing evidence of
health risks traces back to the same Parkersburg plant. According to the
epa, workers were reporting health problems there for years, including
birth defects in their children; as far back as 1981, DuPont scientists
knew that pfoa could cross the placenta and thus contaminate fetuses.
DuPont also knew that some of its workers' babies had been born with eye
defects similar to those 3M had just then reported in rats exposed to pfoa.
At that point, rather than risk finding more evidence, DuPont terminated
its study and didn't report the troubling data to the epa as required by
law. "Our interpretation of the reporting requirements differed from the
agency's," the company explained in 2005.

Today, DuPont remains adamant that pfoa—whether in pots, pants, or drinking
water—is no threat. The epa may say studies show unequivocally that in
"laboratory animals exposed to high doses, pfoa causes liver cancer,
reduced birth weight, immune suppression and developmental problems," but
DuPont's website quotes Dr. Samuel M. Cohen of the University of Nebraska
Medical Center, who says, "We can be confident that pfoa does not pose a
cancer risk to humans at the low levels found in the general population."
But, notes Robert Bilott, one of the lead attorneys in the Parkersburg
suit, "the general population isn't drinking it. And they have five parts
per billion in their blood. Near the West Virginia plant, it's in the
hundreds of parts per billion; and in the elderly and in children, several
thousand parts per billion."

DuPont is hardly unique in trying to cast unflattering data as incomplete
or uncertain. As epidemiologist David Michaels wrote in a 2005 essay in
Scientific American titled "Doubt Is Their Product," many corporations have
followed the tobacco (and more recently, global warming) model of insisting
that the scientific jury is still out, "no matter how powerful the
evidence." Michaels took his title from a 1969 memo written by an executive
for cigarette maker Brown & Williamson: "Doubt is our product since it is
the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind
of the general public." Even the indoor tanning industry, notes Michaels,
"has been hard at work disparaging studies that have linked ultraviolet
exposure with skin cancer."

Chemical companies caught a break with the passage of the 1976 Toxic
Substances Control Act (which they helped write), a measure so weak it
doesn't require industrial chemicals to be tested for toxicity. Only toxic
effects, often found after a product has become ubiquitous in the
environment and in people's bodies, must be reported—and even that rule, as
DuPont discovered, can be broken with only a minor hit to profits.

In the case of pfoa, it was left to the epa to finally investigate the risk
to public health. That assessment, begun in 2000, is expected to go on for
years. If pfoa is determined to be a proven (not merely likely) carcinogen,
says agency spokeswoman Enesta Jones, "this chemical could be banned." It
would be one of the epa's very few outright bans since 1996, when it
proscribed ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons. DuPont was the world's
biggest producer of those too.

For now, DuPont is subject only to the epa's voluntary "stewardship"
program, under which it has agreed to reduce pfoa emissions from products
and factories by 95 percent by 2010 and 100 percent by 2015. DuPont says it
is likely to meet those deadlines: In February, the company announced it
had found a new technology that reduces by 97 percent the pfoa used in
making Teflon and other coatings, and it has vowed to "eliminate the need
to make, buy or use pfoa by 2015."

"It's interesting how DuPont says they're going to eliminate the 'need' to
make, buy, or use pfoa," says Rick Abraham, an environmental consultant for
the United Steelworkers, which represents workers at DuPont's plants. "It's
a self-imposed need. They need it to make money. Are they going to
stockpile it, make as much as they can by 2015? Given DuPont's history,
that's very possible. They need to make public a time frame for annual
production and have it subject to third-party verification." DuPont
spokesman Dan Turner responds, "We're going to eliminate it, period." As
for time frames, he says, "I can't get into specifics. I can only say we're
moving as quickly as the technology allows."

Meanwhile, DuPont has been applying a protective layer of PR to the
problem. Last year, caught in a flurry of bad publicity about fines and
lawsuits, the company took out full-page newspaper ads. One stated,
"Teflon® Non-Stick Coating is Safe." And, as if to flip the bird at
workers' complaints, it ran an ad in Working Woman showing a female factory
worker and declaring: "DuPont employees use their skills and talents to
make lives better, safer and healthier." This year, DuPont plans to
advertise its pfoa-lowering measures only in trade publications, perhaps
because it's tricky to boast of reduced pfoa while also maintaining that
the chemical is harmless. "No one is better than DuPont at greenwashing,"
says Joe Drexler of the Steelworkers' DuPont Accountability Project.

Possibly. Recall DuPont's 1990 "Ode to Joy" commercial, in which seals
clapped, penguins chirped, and whales leapt to honor DuPont for using
double-hull tankers to "safeguard the environment." The seals evidently
didn't realize that a law passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill
required double-hull tankers. The penguins probably didn't connect the ice
melting under their flippers with DuPont's chlorofluorocarbons either. The
company fought against regulating them right up until they were banned.

It is in such ads that corporate fantasies and our individual ones meet and
agree to ignore unpleasantries. Corporations lie to us, sure, but we make
it easy for them with the little lies we tell ourselves. Especially when it
comes to our everyday conveniences, it's easier to accept the company line
that there is no risk than it is to accept that authorities won't
necessarily protect us from risk. Jim Rowe, president of the union local at
DuPont's Chambers Works plants in New Jersey, told me that despite the
science about birth defects among DuPont employees, many of his coworkers
have convinced themselves that there's nothing to worry about: "When we
took blood tests and interviewed them, they said they were told 'pfoa's not
a problem—it's even in polar bears.'" Precisely. And even if DuPont (and
companies that make pfoa in Europe and Asia) stopped producing and using
the chemical tomorrow, the millions of pounds of it already on earth would
remain in the environment and in our bodies "forever," says the ewg's
Wiles. "By that we mean infinity."

Denial, avoidance, and magical thinking aren't new. Like Teflon, they're
barriers that keep unpleasant things at bay, and like Teflon, they're
entrenched deep inside us.

le has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the
Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes - next one May 9, 2007
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fall 2007
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936

[Rebecca Banner]

Ironic you posted this, i've been wondering about whether or not to ditch my pans.

Sheri Nakken wrote:

[Gail]

Hi Sherri,

The article says....

Still, consumers of Teflon pans and pants (not to mention the mascara,

I thought flossing could only be good for you! Any idea how you know your floss, or mascara, is free of nasty stuff?

Gail.

[Sheri Nakken]

>
floss, or mascara, is free of nasty stuff?

don't know
you would have to google on it

mascara has many problems including tiny metal shavings from what I
understand - don't need it now, do you?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sheri Nakken, R.N., MA, Hahnemannian Homeopath
Well Within & Earth Mysteries & Sacred Site Tours (worldwide)
Vaccination Information & Choice Network
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/vaccine.htm
http://www.nccn.net/~wwithin/homeo.htm
homeopathycures@tesco.net
ONLINE Introduction to Homeopathy Classes - next one May 9, 2007
ONLINE Introduction to Vaccine Dangers Classes - next ones fall 2007
ONLINE Intro to Diseases - Risk, Reality & Alternative Treatment next ones
fall 2007
Voicemail US 530-740-0561 UK phone from US 011-44-1874-624-936

[Rebecca Banner]

Do you know what particular ingredient it is in mascara?????? Wow.
Rebecca

Sheri Nakken wrote: