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EPA’s New Teflon Warning

The Environmental Protection Agency last week announced that it would ask U.S. companies to greatly reduce public exposure to prefluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), the toxic chemical in Teflon. Diane Henshel reacts to the EPA’s decision and why the consumers should be worried.

Expert perspective: “The history for the EPA has been to wait until there’s an awful lot of information and evidence to act, but there has been a slow shift in the agency’s willingness to initiate action prior to a complete understanding of the issue.

“Also, industries have a tendency to be more willing to work with the EPA and other government agencies when they are being asked to do so voluntarily as long as they think that they can have some give and take in the final outcome.”

As for household use, Henshel says, “I would recommend that people not use Teflon products. If you do, it's going to introduce something into your body that has the potential to cause adverse effects when it’s not necessary. DuPont is saying ‘Oh, it doesn't break down like that,’ but that’s not true. Everything breaks down with time and those coatings are going to be more likely to break down as they are being scraped, which happens in cooking situations, or when they are being used to heat something that could promote the breakdown of acids such as those in tomatoes, wine, or alcohols. Oils also absorb Teflon and its breakdown products.

“I think it’s disingenuous of DuPont to say ‘Oh, Teflon never changes.’ Under ideal laboratory conditions, it is very slow to degrade, but no one would ever call a cooking situation an ideal lab situation.”

What’s a cook to do? “Olive oil is a good alternative to Teflon because it’s the healthiest of the oils. Whatever happened to the good old-fashioned ‘pour a little in the pan and start cooking’”?

The SPEA toolkit: Diane Henshel is an associate professor at SPEA with a focus on sublethal health effects of environmental pollutants. Her teaching interests include developmental toxicology, risk assessment, and risk communication.

Click here to read more about Diane Henshel.

Click here to read an article about the recent move by the EPA to reduce PFOA.

Click here to read about the work of Prof. Henshel and her students on the healing power of infrared light.

Click here to read about Prof. Henshel's work with her students to study PCBs in the Indiana Wildlife population.