NYT/AP: Board: Teflon Cancer Risks Downplayed

Board: Teflon Cancer Risks Downplayed
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 29, 2005
Filed at 9:27 a.m. ET


DOVER, Del. (AP) -- A controversial chemical used by DuPont Co. to make the nonstick substance Teflon poses more of a cancer risk than indicated in a draft assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency, an independent review board has found.

The EPA stated earlier this year that its draft risk assessment of perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts found ''suggestive evidence'' of potential human carcinogenicity, based on animal studies.

In a draft report released Monday, the majority of members on an EPA scientific advisory board that reviewed the agency's report concluded that PFOA, also known as C-8, is ''likely'' to be carcinogenic to humans, and that the EPA should conduct cancer risk assessments for a variety of tumors found in mice and rats.

Environmentalists hailed the report, which will be discussed by EPA officials and SAB members in a public teleconference July 6, as an important step in holding government regulators and the Delaware-based chemical giant accountable.

The board's findings will increase pressure on the EPA to conduct human health risk assessments for liver, breast, pancreatic and testicular cancer, as well as PFOA's potentially toxic effects on the immune system, said Richard Wiles, senior vice president for the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy and research organization....


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-EPA-Teflon.html

But teflon makes our lives so much easier.

So does toxic herbicides, pesticides.

Fond is where the taste is. I'm fond of fond.

Fond is the brown stuff in the bottom of the pan where the food attached (fond = attachment) to the pan. It is the basis of most pan sauces and it is delicious.

then read the article. The editor must have been tired.

Less there than meets the eye.

is James Inhofe to announce this is "junk science?"

Tobacco industry model.