Careful, Teflon may cause cancer

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vurbano

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060131/ap_on_he_me/epa_teflon

Panel: Teflon Chemical a Likely Carcinogen
By RANDALL CHASE, Associated Press Writer Mon Jan 30, 8:47 PM ET


DOVER, Del. - A chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a "likely" carcinogen, according to an independent scientific review panel advising the Environmental Protection Agency.
The recommendation included in the panel's final draft report is consistent with its preliminary finding, which went beyond the EPA's own determination that there was only "suggestive evidence" from animal studies that perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts are potential human carcinogens.
"The predominant panel view was that the descriptor 'likely to be carcinogenic' was more consistent with currently available data, while a few panel members reached the conclusion that the current evidence fails to exceed the descriptor 'suggestive,' of carcinogenicity," the panel said in a draft report released Monday.
Officials with Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont Co., the sole North American producer of PFOA, took issue with the panel's conclusions.
"We disagree with the panel's recommendation on the cancer classification, and we continue to support the EPA's draft risk assessment," said Robert Rickard, director of health and environmental sciences for DuPont.
"This reflects recommended classification; what's more important is risk, and we are confident that PFOA does not pose a cancer risk to the general public," added Rickard, who said the carcinogenicity classification was based on animal data and does not reflect data from human studies.
PFOA is a processing aid used in the manufacturing of fluoropolymers, which have a wide variety of product applications, including nonstick cookware. The chemical also can be a byproduct in the manufacturing of fluorotelomers used in surface protection products for applications such as stain-resistant textiles and grease-resistant food wrapping.
Besides disagreeing with the EPA on the potential carcinogenicity of PFOA, also known as C-8, a majority of members on the review panel also recommended that the EPA's risk assessment include additional data on PFOA's potential to cause liver, testicular, pancreatic and breast cancers. A majority of panel members also recommended that the chemical's effects on hormones and on the nervous and immune systems be included in the risk assessment, and that studies should not be limited by age, gender or species in assessing human risk.
The findings of the panel, which was established by the EPA's Science Advisory Board, will be reviewed by SAB officials in a Feb. 15 teleconference.
"The real outcome of this is the panel going back and saying `You've got to include this extra stuff here; it wasn't really a rigorous analysis," said Tim Kropp, senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization whose work has prompted increased government scrutiny of PFOA.
While the EPA is free to accept or reject the panel's recommendations, Kropp said it rare for the EPA to dismiss an advisory board's advice.
"They've asked them to do a more rigorous analysis, to do a more scientific method of determining risk, and you can't argue with that," he said. "That's just good science."
EPA officials declined to say how the agency might respond to the report.
"It's sort of what we expected," said EPA deputy administrator Marcus Peacock, adding that he had not read the full report. "There's more we don't know here than what we do know."
Susan Hazen, EPA's acting assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, said much of the work aimed at better understanding PFOA already is underway.
Hazen and Peacock also pointed to an EPA initiative announced last week asking DuPont and seven other companies that manufacture or use PFOA, its precursors, and similar compounds to reduce environmental releases and levels of those chemicals in products by 95 percent no later than 2010, using the year 2000 as a baseline.
The EPA also wants the industry to work toward the elimination of PFOA and related chemicals from emissions and products by no later than 2015.
 
Haven't we known this for years? Maybe they should come up with a list of what doesn't cause cancer. Seems like it would be shorter.
 
This would be a great time to throw my teflon pans in the trash. "oops after 20 years on the market we think it might cause cancer?" :rolleyes:
 
Another media hyped incomplete and non-conclusive study that will be refuted in the next 5 years. :rolleyes: Must be time to renew a grant.....


NightRyder
 
Hasn't this been obvious for years? The fact that a teflon pans kill birds when you cook in a room with them should have been obvious enough.

I threw out my teflon long ago.

Any real chef does not cook with teflon and this is just one of the many reasons. Go into any real cookware store and see how few pots and pans use teflon.
 
Its not the plastic bowls in the microwave it is the saran wrap over the food in the microwave.

You should use a subsitute when nuking food like waxpaper to prevent splatter or just use a lid.
 
Give them a few more years and the scientists will discover that keeping animals in captivity for experimental purposes is the true cause of cancer.

Mario
 
It's not the teflon that is causing cancer, geez people get it right... Breathing causes cancer. But only if you carry the recesive cancer gene.
 
Why all the cynicism and straw man attacks on people who may actually be trying to save your ass?

People did the same thing to Galileo, and Einstein, and countless other new thinkers who helped shape the world you enjoy today.

A bit more thoughtful approach to this issue -- and to life in general -- might take you out of the company of those who said the world was flat and men could never fly.
 
It wasn't an attack... it was called a joke.... everybody knows anything made with a chemical that you can't spell properly is going to be a cancer causing substance. It's just fact, they may not admit it but its true. By the way the act of breathing does cause cancer. Or at least that is what everyone wants us to believe.
 
In 1986 on the front page of the local paper was a feature story on how 7% of womens cervix's were allergic to sperm, therefore sex is the leading cause of cervical cancer. At that point I stopped caring what supposedly caused cancer.
 
rtt2 said:
Hasn't this been obvious for years? The fact that a teflon pans kill birds when you cook in a room with them should have been obvious enough.

I threw out my teflon long ago.

Any real chef does not cook with teflon and this is just one of the many reasons. Go into any real cookware store and see how few pots and pans use teflon.


SWEET, shread all the teflon pots and pans and drop them on china, vietnam, korea and cambodia. no more bird flu!!!!!! oh wait it takes 50 years..................sorry
 
I think frequent bowel movements cause cancer, also toilet paper causes cancer, i think I will stop wiping my a**! LOL- every chemical, hydrocarbons, chlorides, bromides, most sulfates and chemicals can cause cancer.

Human tissue that is constantly kept inflamed can become cancerous as a result of chronic disease. RF energy at various levels and frequencies cause cancer.

Genetics is the MAJOR deciding factor on cancer. You need the genes to have cancer.

Several members of may family have died of cancer that were from seperate environments, occupations, lived in different states.

Some prescription medications are classified as "carcinogenic".

Flouride in drinking water is "carcinogenic"

So why do they put it there? maybe so we can all die with pearly white teeth!
 
Teflon Causes cancer not!!!!

Read into this a little more like I have. It is not Teflon that causes cancer it is a Chemcial used to make teflon that causes cancer. That chemical is chemically changed when made into teflon, so there is no real proof that Teflon does cause cancer.
 
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