PFOA, a chemical used in nonstick products, poses significant health risks. Learn how to protect yourself from its harmful effects.
DuPont PFOA nonstick coating is not recommended
People might think that chemical companies strive to create chemicals that are as harmless as possible and provide strict safety instructions for their use when they are not, but history has shown that this is not the case. Instead, the industry promotes chemicals as harmless even though it is well aware of the risks.
DuPont, Legal Battles
Here is just one example, according to The Intercept: «Concerns about the safety of Teflon, C8, and other long-chain perfluorinated chemicals first came to public attention more than a decade ago, but the full extent of DuPont’s long history of involvement with C8 has never been fully revealed…”
A long list of documents shed light on C8, DuPont, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s intermittent attempts to address this public health threat. This story is based on many of those documents, which, until they were entered into the record as evidence in these trials, had been hidden away in DuPont’s archives.
»Among them are reports of experiments on rats, dogs, and rabbits showing that C8 was linked to a wide range of health problems that sometimes killed the laboratory animals.".
Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, also known as C8) was for decades an essential ingredient in DuPont’s nonstick cookware. The chemical is also used in hundreds of other nonstick and stain-resistant products, ranging from microwave popcorn bags and fast-food wrappers to waterproof clothing and dirt-repellent treatments for furniture and carpets. It is also found in flame-retardant chemicals and, as a result, in items treated with flame retardants, ranging from children’s products to furniture and electronics.
PFOA is a fluorinated chemical—it’s the fluorine atoms that give it that slippery quality. I first learned about the dangers of fluoride-impregnated nonstick coatings in 2001, and I’ve been warning about the use of these types of products ever since. «Once inside the body, perfluoroalkyls tend to remain unchanged for long periods of time.”.
The most commonly used perfluoroalkyl substances (PFOA and PFOS) remain in the body for many years. It takes your body about four years to reduce the level by half, even if you stop consuming them.» While there is an incredible variety of chemical names within this group of chemicals, if an item is nonstick, waterproof, or stain-resistant, it will have some type of fluoride-impregnated coating, which makes it slippery—and you can assume that this could be problematic.
In 2005, a group of three scientists was assembled as part of an agreement to determine the chemical’s effects on people. After seven years of research, the results—detailed in more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles—the C8 Scientific Group linked PFOA to:
• Ulcerative colitis
• High cholesterol
• Pregnancy-induced hypertension
• Thyroid disease
• Kidney and testicular cancer: Its health effects are considered widespread and occurred even at very low levels of exposure. According to The Intercept, DuPont was aware of many of these risks but kept this information secret, even from its own workers, who had direct and prolonged contact with the chemical.
Confidential documents from 1980 show that the company knew that the lethal oral dose of C8 in rhesus monkeys was one ounce per 150 pounds. Tests also showed that the chemical was more toxic when inhaled; however, the risk to workers was not verified.
PFOA Contamination Could Be Permanent
The three-part series by The Intercept titled »The Teflon Toxin: DuPont and the Chemistry of Deception« »The Teflon Toxin: DuPont’s Deception and the Chemical« details DuPont’s long and extensive history of deception, noting that: “Another revelation about C8 makes all of this even more disturbing and provides the following evidence of global significance: This deadly chemical, which DuPont continued to use even after it knew it was linked to health problems, is now practically everywhere. A man-made compound that didn’t exist a century ago, C8 is found in the blood of 99.7 percent of people, according to a 2007 analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as in newborn babies, breast milk, and umbilical cord blood.”.
»And since it is so chemically stable—in fact, as far as scientists can tell, it never breaks down—C8 is expected to remain on the planet long after humans have disappeared from it.".
PFOA, Nicknamed the «Tobacco of the Chemical Industry»
Just like tobacco, the litigation against C8 could forever change the way people view these chemicals. In fact, PFOA is being called the «tobacco of the chemical industry» due to decades of corporate cover-ups regarding its health effects, pending lawsuits, and how difficult it is to hold companies accountable for producing products that cause disease—even after the evidence is clear.
In the case of DuPont, they had evidence of harm to animals—ranging from liver toxicity and kidney damage to death—for decades, but the company did not inform its regulators of a potential problem. Then there were the company’s workers; some of them gave birth to babies with birth defects after working in the company’s PFOA division.
DuPont Found Guilty in Ohio Cancer Case
Since the mid-1960s, Teflon waste has been routinely disposed of in landfills. In the past, DuPont also disposed of the hazardous chemical by dumping barrels into the sea—which was actually legal at the time—and about 200 drums of C8 were also dumped near the plant on the banks of the Ohio River. In 1984, according to the testimony, DuPont’s own tests established that C8 had seeped into the local drinking water.
In 1989, DuPont knew that C8 caused testicular tumors in rats—and even classified C8 as a possible carcinogen. But instead of reporting these findings, Mike Papantonio told the jury, «For at least 16 years, they hid this information from the public.» When Science Is No Longer an Indicator of Truth… A retrospective perspective shows that the industry first sets its business goals with little regard for health risks, and then creates «scientific evidence» to support its established business model.
When science does not support the company's economic plans, they ignore the findings—even if people are dying and the planet is being irreparably poisoned as a result.
Today we live in a world where multinational biotechnology and chemical companies can easily commission and fund their own research studies, as well as set up lobbying groups to support the kind of legislation they need to pass.
Conflicts of interest have become the norm in virtually every field of science, creating a situation that is completely untenable, long-lasting, and dangerous. It is quite clear that we are facing a concrete wall, unless some dramatic changes are made.
Currently, tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals are used in the United States, and the safety of most of them has not been assessed. This simply has to change. www.quiropractica1.com
