A friend claimed that a recent study found that almost everyone in America has significant quantities of teflon and flame retardants in their bodies. This supposedly is because the teflon from pots and pans gets mixed with our food, and flame retardants from clothing (especially children’s pajamas) are inhaled into our body. True?
Not True. No cite! Turn on your BS detector.
Nothing to it. An old wives’ tale or uran legend.
Teflon is essentially inert to most chemicals, solvents, etc. EXCEPT excessive heat!
It looks to me that there’s some valid cause for concern on teflon breakdown products:
DuPont, EPA Settle Case On Chemical Disclosure
Effects of Perfluorooctanoic Acid on the Synthesis
of Phospholipids in…
Toxicity and toxicokinetics of perfluorooctanoic acid in humans and animals.
I remember a scare concerning the chemicals used in flame retardent clothes for kids 15 or 20 years ago, but I don’t know what came of it, and haven’t run across anything about it recently.
Many concerns, yes, but studies are inconclusive at best and no one agrees on safe exposure levels. I think the guideline is to keep temperatures under 400 degrees F.
Define ‘significant’.
If you live in a western country you will almst certainly have measurable quantities of flame retardants in your body. one of many articles on the subject.
Pyjamas? Dunno about that, but since most plastic semi-durables (car dashboards, TVs, etc.) have these things added, the daily environment has plenty of these chemicals, and they bioaccumulate.
As regards Teflon, I haven’t heard that much about it affecting humans, but given that it is a well-known killer of birds I would assume there is also plenty of it knocking about in the average house, but not enough to affect humans much.