Teflon Dangers: Deadly to Chickens — And Us

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Photo By Matthew T. Stallbaumer
Teflon-coated light bulbs have killed chickens, but GE is too big to care.

GE has refused to add a warning to their bulbs’ packaging even though it has been known for many years that, when heated, Teflon-coated “nonstick” cooking pans can release a compound that kills birds and causes flu-like “polymer fume fever” in humans. In our October/November 2012 Dear MOTHER article, reader Lynn Chong detailed her efforts to convince GE to add a warning label to their light bulb packaging after a bulb killed 19 birds in her coop.

Chong’s story about Teflon dangers prompted us to research the history of Teflon and other perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). Turns out there’s a great deal more to the story of DuPont’s Teflon than the deadly danger it presents to birds. Here’s the timeline we compiled from reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post and from scientific literature.

  • Teflon has been used worldwide for more than 50 years in hundreds of nonstick and stain-resistant products. It’s used in food packaging, window films, cookware and more by such well-known brands as Gore-Tex fabrics, Scotchgard fabric and upholstery protectors, Stainmaster carpets, and SilverStone cookware.
  • At least one PFC (perfluorooctanoic acid, aka PFOA) associated with Teflon causes cancer of the testicles, liver and pancreas in rodents. It has been designated a probable human carcinogen. Roughly 90 percent of people carry PFOA in their blood; it is also found in polar bears, human sperm and at ocean depths of 3,000 feet.
  • Published on Oct 30, 2012
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