Why does the EPA say that it's not safe to use Teflon pans but people continue to use them? Cancer???

Teflon chemical cancer-causing?


June 29: An advisory panel to the EPA says there is reason to be concerned about a chemical compound found in everything from your frying pan to pizza boxes. NBC's Tom Costello reports.


Nightly News


WASHINGTON - With five kids, it seems Barbara Andrukonis always has something cooking in a pan. But it's the chemical compound used to make the pan's Teflon coating that has her 鈥?and an EPA panel 鈥?concerned.





"I think that anything that sort of isn't the way that nature made it has to have some type of problem with it for us humans," says Andrukonis.





The compound is perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. Trace amounts of it have shown up in blood samples taken from people across the country. When rats and mice were exposed to PFOA in far greater amounts, they developed brain tumors. Now, an EPA advisory panel reports, "PFOA is a likely carcinogen in humans."


Teflon鈥檚 manufacturer, DuPont, says it doesn't know why PFOA is turning up in human blood samples|||Because people don't know *and* don't care! I've heard people say "everything causes cancer". It never occurs to some people that this means you should be *more* careful, not less! Everyone believe that "nothing bad can happen to *me*"...until it does. Then they want to know why nobody told them!|||If you read the instructions on the teflon pans, it tells you not to exceed a certain temperature. Basically what the companies are doing is, giving the consumer the information and then it is up to the consumer to follow the instructions. Also, there are no studies to provide hard core evidence and until that happens companies will use what works.|||There is no evidence that your teflon pans gives up enough or any PFOA during normal use. The PFOA is involved in the manufacture of the teflon. There are many more things in your life that are a danger to your children. Start with your house. Have you done a professional lead, asbestos, radon, or mold inspection? Do you allow them to each foods like mushrooms and brocolli that have carcinogens in them naturally? Milk products such as ice cream that have dioxin? Do you let them go to gas stations where you are pumping carcinogenic gasoline mixtures? Your emphasis should be to make sure they eat well, stay healthy within your control, keep them off drugs, sex, alcohol, and smoking until they are adults.





Don't let these scare reports on TV make you go crazy. Handle the big things in life first, keep up with the science reports, but put them in prespective of the other things that effect our lives. let the scientists have a whack at it first.