Products with Teflon

While it is not good to see reports of possible drinking water contamination by PFOA, the EPA and Dupont are doing the correct thing to try to determine what level of exposure might be considered harmful to humans.



Unfortunately, in any industrialized nation, humans are exposed to chemicals that may be harmful. It's also unfortunate that medical science may sometimes take years to figure out at what level certain chemical exposure may be harmful to humans.



The media often loves to make a splash in the headlines with stories about toxic chemicals. Sadly, misinformed activists often advocate that all chemicals are bad and should be eliminated worldwide because they harm the environment.



An example: Chlorine is used in ~ 95% of municipal water treatment facilities to disinfect and kill harmful bacteria in our drinking water. Chlorination remains the most common form of wastewater disinfection in North America due to its low cost and long-term history of effectiveness. One disadvantage is that chlorination of residual organic material can generate chlorinated organic compounds that may be carcinogenic or harmful to the environment.



IMO this is a risk I am willing to accept given the alternatives of dealing with a constant threat of cholera or amoebic dysentery from improperly disinfected drinking water.



Given the choice between our current quality of life and living in a world without any chemicals, I would always choose the former.
 
Actually DuPont, just like 3M, are running roadblocks. When DuPont was asked if there are any health consequences to ingesting all those non-stick molecules. "Not to worry", says DuPont's Kris Mohan, "We are, after all, talking non-stick. It's completely inert, and it passes right through the body without interfering with anything." He failed to explain how exactly these molecules are collecting in our blood. I'd certainly be more concerned about PFOA's than VOC's and we saw how the EPA has reacted to that threat.



Chlorinated drinking water is not exactly a good example. Why not choose PCB's. That is potentially a closer match to PFOA's. Or how about Mercury? Would you avoid eating a fish you knew contained PCB's or Mercury?



I'm not one of those "alarmists" but I do think it is prudent to try to avoid substances that could cause health issues. This is easy to do when it comes to car care products as it is not proven that Teflon does anything useful in them.



In new laboratory work scientists find that low doses of PFOA harm lab animals — at estimated blood levels lower than those found in some children. The government initiated in-depth analyses of human risk on receiving 3M lab studies in May 2001. And now, with calculated risks to human health far too high, the government is poised to demand rare, expedited assessments.



Industry’s most recent study shows organ weight changes — often a gross sign of toxicity and damage to organ function — among lab animals exposed to PFOA in the womb and into early adulthood. [Organ weight effects in: males | females] [Mortality and sexual development: Extract | Full document] Some human children and adults have more PFOA in their blood than the estimated levels for the animals in this study. Under duress from the Environmental Protection Agency, 3M and DuPont are handing over unprecedented amounts of health and safety data — some 50,000 pages worth to date.
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http://www.ewg.org/reports/pfcworld/part4.php
 
and if we all keep worrying about all the things we MIGHT ingest/inhale/eat by mistake, then what kind of life would we live when we end up with major Ulcers from all the worrying.!
 
I do not believe that Industry is blameless. The EPA is not a very effective agency often due to the slow change allowed by government bureaucracy and political agendas.



The original use of PCBs was as an insulator material in transformers and capacitors. PCBs weren't invented to be intentionally released into the environment to cause problems. The problem was that they were too effective at their jobs as they didn't easily break down or degrade when heated. Unfortunately, it was industry's own shortsidedness about proper disposal of PCB contaminated waste that was the cause of the problem.



How is it possible to entirely avoid substances that might cause a health issue in your life? How can you determine absolutely which new chemical and at what concentrations it might be harmful to any human? Only a small fraction of this knowledge comes after many years of exhaustive, costly testing and gathering large amounts of data from a diverse cross-section of people.



Our human life expectancy has increased due to advances through both chemistry and medicine. Real people must be used as guinea pigs before new medicines can ever be brought to the market. My original point was that to live in and enjoy life in a modern industrialized society there is a risk associated with it. We cannot completely eliminate chemical risks and achieve some sort of utopian existence.



There is no scientific guarantee that exempts mankind's ability to make mistakes.
 
I don't worry about it too much. IMHO, dealing with some backround level of toxic chemicals is just a part of modern life. It's one thing if a large portion of the population starts dying off (ala Woburn, MA) due to a massive concentration of toxic solvents. Anything short of that really fails to bother me. I smoke cigars, I work with hydroflouric acid, etc on a daily basis, and there is no way that a coupla pots and pans are going to kill me.
 
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