"Teflon flu" READ THIS!!!--Birth defects, illness, and it kills pet birds

[underpants]

Long article but wortha read. This is the 20/20 investigation of it but it was on ABC WNT last night.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/Living/Teflon_investigation_031114-3.html

The same chemical, C-8, was found not only in the blood of Sue Bailey when she became pregnant but, it turns out, is in the blood of virtually every American, in much smaller but still detectable levels. This discovery make this a story that reaches far beyond what happened in one small town in West Virginia.

There is another more immediate health problem from Teflon, according to the Environmental Working Group. Cooking with Teflon can make a person sick with a temporary flu if a non-stick pan gets overheated.

"It feels like the flu," said Houlihan, "headaches, chills, backache, temperature between 100 and 104 degrees."

"At 554 degrees Fahrenheit," said Houlihan, "studies show ultrafine particles start coming off the pan. These are tiny little particles that can embed deeply into the lungs."

In the demonstration for 20/20, a piece of bacon was just getting crisp when the Teflon pan went beyond the initial warning point of 500 degrees.

"I've never cooked bacon," said Chowdhry (dupotm VP of Research and Development). "I can't comment."

Perhaps most telling is an internal DuPont document, only now made public, that shows the company knew that of eight women working on the Teflon line in 1981, two had children with birth defects — not just Sue Bailey, but a second mother whom 20/20 was able to locate.

[unblock]

1. a fine argument for lawsuit limits

$200,000 should easily cover a lifetime of wheelchairs, major medical attention, surgeries, prostheses, sterility, pain, and suffering.

besides, teflon users have only themselves to blame. no one put a gun to the heads and forced them to buy something advertised as safe and appropriate for kitchen use at hot temperatures. caveat emptor and all that.

capitalism works, and companies that make bad products always go out of business, so any company that exists must be selling good products. and the upside of making washing dishes infinitely easier, because pan-stuck food is 99.9% of what washing dishes is all about, far outweighs the minor inconveniences described above affecting only several hundreds of million americans.

sheesh. liberals.

[Darth_Kitten]

2. Thanks for this link!!!

When getting my tiel, Murphee, I did a little research and found out the dangers of Teflon for birds. :( You would have to think that there's some health risk for humans as well. (why would it make one living creature sick and not another?)

Thanks! :)

[eyesroll]

3. Birds have a different respiratory system from humans, so they feel it

first.
But you're right -- it's more of a cumulative toxin in humans. (Although this is the first thing I've read to actually say it can cause actual illness in humans.)

The only teflon we still use in cooking is on a corkscrew. (If that's overheated, it's because the house is on fire.) We have two birds, and easy cleanup just isn't worth the risk.

[1monster]

6. Remember that miners tested the air in mine

shafts with a canary in the old days. If the canary died, no one went down that shaft...

Looks like we need to keep canaries in our homes these days to insure that we are breathing safe air.

[xchrom]

4. i knew it, i knew it, i knew it

i knew that crap was bad for you! idon't get me wrong -- i use it -- but i've often wondered about that stuff.
oh that just makes me so cranky.

[underpants]

5. Also in clothing

the Therma_____ coated stuff. Sorry my brain isn't working to well this morning.

The coating actually goes right through the skin. :scared:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

7. Thermaloft, I think

It's used a lot in coats, gloves, comforters, etc.

I just got a new teflon pan. I never cook anything over medium heat generally, but I have a no-stick stew pot that I stick in the oven for stews. I wonder if that sends bad fumes into the air...

[bleedingheart]

8. Ah the price we pay to make things easy

Don't get me wrong...I love easy stuff too...but sometimes you just have to wonder.

People didn't like having to scrub a pan clean, so scientists invented a coating that would allow for easy clean up....but a coating on any metal will come off eventually.

Makes scrubbing a pan seem a lot more simple... and plus you can tone up those arms with all that scrubbing.