Dear Editor:
Teflon and many other non-stick products owe their food-shedding quality to a chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA – nicknamed C8, for its eight carbon atoms.
Besides slipperiness, C8 is very, very stable. It apparently does not biodegrade, at least in any time scale of interest to human beings.
C8, it turns out, is now widespread in the environment,and also in us – 99-plus percent of people tested.
As part of a 2005 court settlement, a court-appointed scientific panel determined in 2012 that C8 likely was implicated in a wide variety of illnesses and effects, from ulcerative colitis to several cancers, occurring widely throughout the body and at very low exposure levels.
A manufacturer knew over 40 years ago that the chemical was toxic.
Although C8 was to be phased out as a result of the problems coming to light in the court case, the replacement chemicals, in a family called PFCs, apparently also have problems. A group of scientists has called on consumers to avoid products containing PFCs.
There are thousands of chemicals in use today, few of which have ever been studied for toxicity. A chemist at a conference recently made the sensible suggestion that every chemistry major should take courses in toxicology.
For consumers, the recommendation is simple: Stick with time-proven stuff.
Frank Stoppenbach
Red Hook, N.Y.
Recent letters by Frank Stoppenbach
“LETTER: Genetically modified organisms should be labeled for consumers,” Aug. 4, 2015
“LETTER: One lesson from Charleston is that good trumps evil,” July 1, 2015
“LETTER: Think twice about war over Ukraine,” Jan. 16, 2015
“LETTER: Funding bill bad for U.S.,” Dec. 17, 2014
“LETTER: We are on path to war over Ukraine,” Aug. 17, 2014
“LETTER: For profits, drug companies turn from cures to perpetual-dependency drugs,” May 22, 2014
“LETTER: U.S. money shouldn’t be going to Ukraine,” March 14, 2014
