Non-Stick Magic -- Some History
Teflon© promised moms of the 1960's that their frozen peas, canned spaghetti and fried eggs wouldn't stick to the pan. It accommodated unpredictably hot electric ranges. Even better, when cooks forgot the family supper on the stove for a minute -- say while ironing a shirt -- dinner didn't char to a crisp. Sure the pan got hot but the jury is out as to whether the fumes and particles are toxic to humans -- as some experts claim -- or just to birds and animals.
One might reason that if you were a chemical company, whose chemist by mistake polymerized tetraflouroethylene and hydrochloric acid while running experiments to invent a new Freon-like refrigerant, you would exhaustively test to see if the resulting surprise material was toxic to humans before making hundreds of domestic products with it. But that's not exactly how it works.
The initial challenges Dupont faced were chemical. Polymerized tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) was originally used for military purposes; the tips of bombs, air planes and manufacturing explosives. Its domestic uses came after the war. How do you get a non-stick substance to stick to pans in order to be useful? Research money was targeted impressively towards getting the material to comply with the desired uses. Another priority was advertising. How do you get a war shocked society to spend money, now that supply is guaranteed? Gathering toxicity data apparently wasn't the highest priority.
Teflon© and related materials are synthesized and used for non-stick pans, as well as carpets, lenses, clothing, upholstery, stockings, coating for paper products, food wrap, roofing, cables, electrical equipment, engines, seals and sealants, floor waxes and coverings, beauty product containers, medicine containers, implants used for tempo-mandibular joint replacement, ocular surgery, and many other applications.
Hungry for Safety Data
The safety of these products is important to public health since many of the products or bi-products come in contact with skin, water supplies, air and soil. We assume Teflon© is safe. But cases brought to court about TMJ implants claim that the implants degrade in the body, and lawyers defended the safety of the degraded Teflon© based on "government data". Yet has the government found Teflon© to be safe?
If the products aren't safe is there any way of avoiding exposure? Tobacco was relatively easy to avoid. However these chemicals are ubiquitous. Zonyl, another Dupont chemical, is used to make grease resistant coatings for paper used in food packaging, paper cups, etc. It was recently reported by a whistleblower that PFOA from Zonyl© "'is absorbed by humans at three times the permitted level', said Glenn R. Evers, a DuPont chemical engineer from 1981 to 2002.
Ohio Citizen wrote to 19 companies asking if they used fluorotelomers like Perfluorooctanoic Acid PFOA containing Zonyl in their packaging. A few companies responded , while 12 didn't, including Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Dairy Farmers, Kraft Foods, Tyson Foods, Dreyers Ice Cream, Dole, Sara Lee, Kellogg and Nestle. Campbell didn't acknowledge the problem, Papa John's and Domino's didn't use PFOA, while several other companies did use PFOA and intended to continue. When you drink your organic non-fat super special latte at 8:00 in the morning should you worry whether the paper cup is safe to use?
The fact that we don't quite know whether the products may be safe may be a testament to Dupont's advertising facilities, a lack of governmental oversight, and a dependence on industrial self-policing. Dupont is a quintessential advertiser. To market their products, Dupont basically proved the concept of advertising. It started with its Teflon© brand in the 1960's by spending $750,000 on one study that showed that housewives who saw Teflon© pan advertising bought pans at three times the rate as those who weren't subjected to the advertising, according to the Journal of Marketing Research. Dupont is necessarily a perennially successful advertiser, albeit now with a more expansive budget. In 2003 Teflon© was "featured in a $20 million consumer fall advertising campaign", reported the Gale Group (September 15, 2003).
Dupont now has forty years of advertising research showing the power of advertising to control product perception, and readily puts its expertise to use for brand defense, worldwide. For instance Dupont admits that Teflon fumes can kill birds, but it is as circumspect about this admission as it is about any discussion of toxicity from any of its chemicals. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reported in "Canaries in the Kitchen" that they 'urged' Dupont to put warnings about the "acute hazards" to birds on its cookware. While Dupont "publicly acknowledge['s] that Teflon© can kill birds", they naturally balked at putting warnings on their cookware. EWG complains that even a company produced public safety brochure on bird safety:
"...discusses the hazards of ceiling fans, mirrors, toilets, and cats before mentioning the dangers of Teflon© fumes."
Dupont also repeatedly denies that the fumes are toxic to humans, although they do acknowledge potential flu-like conditions after overexposure, which they add should never happen with "normal use". Other organizations disagree. The reason the disagreements are disturbing is because of the high levels on PFOA found in the environment and humans. Some children have levels of PFOA that cause developmental problems in rats. PFOA is found in placental blood, and in 90-95% of blood bank blood. Scientists have been "warning about potential deleterious effects of PFOA since 1961. But the fact that PFOA causes cancer in rats, as well as liver, kidney, pancreas and other organ damage in animals, does not necessarily mean that it does the same in humans.
When the EPA filed a complaint last year that the company had inaccurately reported results to the Toxic Sustance Control Act (TSCA) and Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA), Dupont replied:
"The evidence from over fifty years of experience and extensive scientific studies supports our conclusion that PFOA does not harm human health or the environment.."
However with "fifty" (or "forty" depending on which Dupont statement you read) years of research, Dupont chose only one recent study to defend its claim that the facts are "misreported". The study:
"A published, peer-reviewed study (April 2005) in Environmental Science & Technology (http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/asap.cgi/esthag/asap/pdf/es048353b.pdf) found no PFOA in Teflon© cookware..."
The 2005 study was "independent" Dupont always says, however Dupont scientists from Dupont Corporate Remediation Group, Dupont Chemical Solutions Enterprise, Dupont Fluroproducts, and Dupont Haskell Laboratory are listed as authors. The abstract concludes:
"while there are considerable uncertainties in this assessment, it indicates that exposures to PFO during consumer use of articles evaluated in this study are not expected to cause adverse human health effects...."
Some of the "uncertainties" are no doubt due to assumptions made by the investigators, for instance products were generally tested new, not used; an assumption the investigators say would result in higher resulting levels of PFO (the tested chemical). However outside researchers are actually most concerned with how Teflon© degrades. Some products stood in for others, as "surrogate" products in the study, for instance treated apparel was a surrogate product for carpets and upholstery. Investigators could only simulate wear and tear like how a product would break down when subject to a baby's teething. Many products were tested assuming "normal use". In this instance, the "normal use" standard is arguable, for instance research has already shown that "normal use", for a Teflon© pan would exclude certain frying that many consider "normal". Dupont tested for PFO, rather then PFOA when testing inhalation pathways because PFOA wasn't "normally" found in fumes.
Dupont adds that the "China Academy of Inspection and Quarantine" and the "The Danish Technical Institute" concur with their findings. The Danish report was not immediately available. The Chinese group CAIQ does research and is a trade organization "engaged in the conversion, exploitation, trade and marketing of research achievements". CAIQ says that it "established methods for the determination of perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts in Teflon coating in non-stick pan in very short time in the crisis of Dupont Teflon© in 2004"" [sic] (The "crisis" occurred when Chinese consumers panicked and stores removed Teflon pans from shelves after the EPA accused Dupont of concealing safety data about Teflon PFOA. While the group quickly found Teflon© pans to be safe, their finding contradicted a previous study done in China, which warned consumers that the pans might not be appropriate for 'Chinese cooking'.
News reports of the 16.5 million dollar EPA settlement this week repeat, parrot-like, that this is "the largest penalty ever..." (The fine to the EPA was $10.25 million, with $6.25 million mandated for undisclosed environmental research). While this may be the largest fine, it is unimpressive. Acronym Required reported in an article on another Dupont/Teflon© lawsuit - a civil suit filed in Florida last summer for five billion dollars - the EPA is famously weak on regulating chemicals. This is the opinion of scientists, the General Accounting Office (GAO), and organizations like the EWG, who reported earlier this year:
"If the E.P.A. were to take action against PFOA, it would be the first major regulation of a chemical in more than 15 years. Of the more than 80,000 chemicals that have been in commercial use since World War II, just five types are regulated: PCB's, halogenated chlorofluoroalkanes, dioxin, asbestos and hexavalent chromium."
While this may be an unprecedented move for the FDA, the fine 10.5 million dollars is small compared to the penalties Dupont faced. Dupont's infraction was technically a reporting infraction but the potential fine was about $313 million dollars. It is also small compared to the pervasiveness of the products and their potential degradation into the environment. The EWG reports that Teflon nets about $200 million dollars a year for the company.
To date, the evidence shows only that systems for industrial "self-policing" are spurious. Dupont is a bulldog in defending its lucrative brands and its multi-million dollar market. They warn that using the two terms "PFOA" and "Teflon" synomously "constitutes a trademark" "violation". The company's less then forthright dealings with the FDA and with the public only invite concern about the safety of its products. Reports by former Dupont chemists that Zonyl©, enters the bloodstream at three times FDA approved levels adds to the concerns, as do recent refusals to divulge which chemicals are being studied in the EPA's order to the company to spend 6.25 million dollars on research.
The EPA will continue independent testing of PFOA. While Dupont denies that PFOA is anything but safe, it is embarking on new chemical processes to reduce the use of PFOA (Plastics News, October 10, 2005). Dupont won kudos in Business Week for 2005. It reported carbon reductions that won it an award for being the most green company of 2005.
