Scientists Issue Warning Over Chemicals Common In CARPETS, COATS, COOKWARE
- By Lynne Peeples - May 1, 2015 - The Huffington Post
In 1961, a DuPont toxicologist warned colleagues that exposure to their company's increasingly popular Teflon chemicals enlarged the livers of rats and rabbits.
Studies over the following decades found no safe level of exposure in animals and determined that humans, too, got sick when exposed to the chemicals -- which were also seen to build up in the body and resist breakdown in the environment.
Nonstick, it turned out, tends to stick around.
By the end of 2015, some of these most notorious polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs, will be fully phased out of use in the U.S.
But emerging in their place, warn environmental health experts, are another group of PFASs that share many of the same concerning characteristics.
"We know these substitutes are equally persistent. They don't break down for geologic time,"
said Arlene Blum, a chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, and the executive director of the nonprofit Green Science Policy Institute.
On Friday, the journal Environmental Health Perspectives published a document known as the Madrid Statement, signed by more than 200 scientists from 38 countries.
The statement highlights the potential harm of both old and new PFAS chemicals.
You may know them best as the stuff that protects your carpet from stains, keeps your food from sticking to packaging or pans, repels rain from your coat and prevents mascara from running down your cheeks.
If you got a pastry with your coffee this morning, a PFAS substance probably even lined the waxy paper it was served on. . . .
[Much more detail in article cont'd at link above.] -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- Same issue, additional human considerations:
Ten Years Later, Chemical Safety and Justice for DuPont’s Teflon Victims Remain Elusive
- By David Andrews, Senior Scientist and Bill Walker, Consultant
Friday, May 1, 2015 - EWG [Environmental Working Group]
- Full article at link above. -
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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GretaM
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 40917
posted
Ick!
Thanks for the great post Keebler! Pans are in the dumpster bin. Happily, after reading the dangers of the non stick.
Posts: 4358 | From British Columbia, Canada | Registered: Jun 2013
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posted
I used Teflon for years... I gave it up about 2 yrs ago.. Probably not soon enough!
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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beaches
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 38251
posted
I think I used teflon twice back in the 1980's! It just never sat right with me for some reason. I've always been a stainless steel kinda gal!
Except for recently---WOW---I have discovered non-stick enamel frying pans!! They are SO easy to clean! As someone who cooks all the time, I am doing the happy dance!
Posts: 1885 | From here | Registered: Jul 2012
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