Teflon Frying Pans: Is Your Health at Risk?

What is Teflon?

Teflon is a brand name and registered trademark of E.I. duPont de Nemours and Company, Dupont for short. Teflon is a non-stick, stain resistant, and durable material used in a variety of products. This versatile material, which most people associate primarily with cookware such as frying pans, muffin tins, and cake pans, has been in existence for more than 40 years. Teflon however, is used for more than just cookware it is also used in personal care products such as lens coatings for eyeglasses and nail hardeners for nail polish, as a stain protector in fabrics used to make clothing, to make carpets and other textiles stain-resistant, and in a number of automotive and industrial applications including wiper blades, marine coatings, and in the semi-conductor and biotech manufacturing processes.

Teflon prides itself on being a brand that people trust and rely on for many of their every day needs. Teflon's multi-layered technology is what sets it apart from the competition. The first layer applied to the surface of the pan or other piece of cookware is the adhesion or rugged primer layer. The second layer is the mid-coat or protective layer, and the surface layer is called the top coat, which is what makes Teflon so easy to cook with and to clean up. These three layers are what makes Teflon so durable.

The History of Teflon

Dupont, based in Wilmington, Delaware, holds all of the patents relating to Teflon, the first of which was obtained in 1945. The story of Teflon begins nearly ten years before that however, on April 6, 1938. A chemist by the name of Dr. Roy J. Plunkett was working in one of Dupont's laboratories in New Jersey and discovered Teflon by accident. While conducting experiments on tetrafluoroethylene, a substance associated with Freon® refrigerants, he noticed that a frozen sample had polymerized or plasticized into another substance called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a slippery substance that is inert under almost any chemical condition.

The substance was given the brand name Teflon and products using the Teflon trademark were manufactured and marketed to the public one year later in 1946. The rest is history as they say. Subsequent patents in the Teflon “family”, which go by the name of fluoropolymers (a group of organic compounds containing fluorine and carbon that are not trademarked), include FEP Teflon, introduced in 1960; Tefzel® ETFE in 1970; and PFA Teflon, in 1972.

Are Health Risks Associated with Teflon?

In a word, yes, but not necessarily in the way you might think. Teflon has recently come under fire by consumer groups and individuals as a possible source of health risks, primarily as a result of the confusion between Teflon, the brand name, and PFOA. PFOA is the synthetic chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid and is also known as C-8, the name it was originally manufactured under by 3M Corporation. Contrary to popular belief, Teflon and PFOA are not synonymous in any way and should not be viewed as such. In fact, according to Dupont, using these names interchangeably violates trademark laws.

Since Teflon is only a brand name, Teflon in and of itself is not a health risk. As a consumer who uses cookware with Teflon non-stick coatings, you may or may not be at risk for adverse health effects due to degradation of the non-stick coating under certain conditions. If you are someone who works in a facility that manufactures Teflon and during the manufacturing process are exposed to PFOA, a chemical used in the manufacturing process for Teflon, the answer is equally ambiguous based on current information.

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in an OPPT (Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics) Fact Sheet issued August 2004 maintains that it doesn't believe there is any reason for consumers to stop using Teflon products. The EPA also states that PFOA is generally present in humans at very low levels; however, a specific source of PFOA is not known as it is used in the manufacture of many different products among them fire fighting foams; personal care and cleaning products; and oil, stain, grease, and water repellent coatings on carpet, textiles, leather, and paper. Nor is it known why or how humans have acquired PFOA in their bodies.

While PFOA has been linked to birth defects and cancer in laboratory studies conducted on animals, it is less obvious as to whether it or Teflon non-stick coatings present a health hazard when it comes to human beings. According to the Environmental Working Group, using a Teflon non-stick coating pan to cook in may cause flu-like symptoms such as headache, chills, and fever, if it is overheated to 680 degrees Fahrenheit, due to fumes that are emitted at these temperatures, which are hotter than those normally used in cooking or for example if the waters boils away and the pan is left on the stove. Researchers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have also found trace amounts of PFOA when Teflon non-stick coatings on cookware have been subjected to conditions of extreme testing methods, which again are not typical of how most consumers use these products.

It appeared that Dupont knew this could happen but declined to disclose it to the public until fairly recently. As a result, the EPA's opinion has been slowly changing. In March 2005, the EPA sent letters out to eight companies, including Dupont, asking them to begin phasing out the use of PFOA in the manufacturing process and to completely eliminate PFOA by the year 2015. In December 2005, the EPA ordered Dupont to pay $16.5 million in civil penalties for withholding health and safety data pertaining to the degradation of PFAO in Teflon non-stick coatings. The monies will be used to fund additional research on the effects of PFOA on humans. Dupont expects to reduce PFOA emissions by 99% in its U.S. manufacturing facilities by 2007. In early 2006 an EPA scientific advisory board indicated that PFOA might indeed be a likely carcinogenic substance, although the EPA has not yet added PFOA to its list of carcinogens.

As with many other chemical substances whose effects on humans are not well known, the answer to whether Teflon non-stick coatings in cookware present health risks to human beings requires further research.