For years, chemical company DuPont downplayed and hid the dangers of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), or C-8, as DuPont calls it, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG). PFOA, or C-8, is found in many household items; fabrics, cleaners, and more commonly in Teflon, the stuff lining our cookware that touches nearly every piece of food we eat.
Because of nearly 50 years of Teflon being used on cookware, C-8 “has found its way into the blood of virtually every American.” DuPont’s awareness of C-8’s toxicity dates back to 1984 when an internal company memo noted that C-8 was “moderately toxic.” That same year, after Teflon production was found to contaminate West Virginia water supplies, DuPont only doubled its production in the following 15 years.
“DuPont has known since at least 1996 how to produce Teflon without using this toxic chemical, but it instead just boosted production – and pollution,” said EWG Senior Scientist Dr. Kristina Thayer. “It’s an outrageous pattern of behavior that has resulted in the further contamination of the blood of practically every American.”
According to an Environmental Working Group press release, in 2002, DuPont destroyed scientific evidence relevant to PFOA-related litigation brought against the company by 3,000 West Virginia and Ohio residents.
In 2007, the Environmental Working Group released an analysis of the EPA’s risk assessment of Teflon. According to the EPA, approximately 95 percent of Americans are carrying C-8 in their bloodstreams at any given time. The C-8 in Teflon can cause a myriad of deadly ailments: heart attacks, stroke, various forms of cancer, immune system damage, and pituitary gland damage.
C-8, the Teflon chemical, provides an elevated risk of so many deadly ailments, and with the many internal and external studies performed on C-8, DuPont had to have known about its potential dangers. One needs to seriously ask if Teflon is a killer and if DuPont is to blame.
Josh is a writer and researcher with Ring of Fire. Follow him on Twitter @dnJdeli.
