<story><title>3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2018/07/31/3m-pfas-minnesota-pfoa-pfos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UnderProtest</author><text>This headline isn&amp;#x27;t exactly accurate and the article is misleading. PFOA was used in the process of affixing Teflon to surfaces but is not present in the pan itself. PFOA has built up in the environment as a result of the manufacturing processes that use it.&lt;p&gt;It would be more accurate to say &amp;quot;3M knew that manufacturing non-stick pans, and a number of other products, was poisoning all of us in the &amp;#x27;70s&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;You didn&amp;#x27;t have to have a Teflon pan to be exposed and having a Teflon pan didn&amp;#x27;t increase your exposure significantly. Microwave popcorn bags and other food wrappers were hundreds of times worse.&lt;p&gt;Teflon pans remain safe to use. All these other non-stick products are potential problems but it&amp;#x27;s impractical to try to identify which ones have PFOA or PFOS... so it&amp;#x27;s a good thing it&amp;#x27;s being phased out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>hammock</author><text>PFOA&amp;#x2F;S are bad, but ALL organofluorines are bad. That is pretty much a settled fact even though industry press will only point to peer-reviewed studies on specific molecules like PFOA&amp;#x2F;S.&lt;p&gt;Including chipping Teflon, and that winter boot waterproofing spray you have in your closet...&lt;p&gt;edit: Not sure why I&amp;#x27;m being downvoted. The body does not have a way of breaking down the carbon-fluorine bond, therefore these chemicals tend to bioaccumulate.</text></comment>
<story><title>3M Knew About the Dangers of PFOA and PFOS Decades Ago, Internal Documents Show</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2018/07/31/3m-pfas-minnesota-pfoa-pfos/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UnderProtest</author><text>This headline isn&amp;#x27;t exactly accurate and the article is misleading. PFOA was used in the process of affixing Teflon to surfaces but is not present in the pan itself. PFOA has built up in the environment as a result of the manufacturing processes that use it.&lt;p&gt;It would be more accurate to say &amp;quot;3M knew that manufacturing non-stick pans, and a number of other products, was poisoning all of us in the &amp;#x27;70s&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;You didn&amp;#x27;t have to have a Teflon pan to be exposed and having a Teflon pan didn&amp;#x27;t increase your exposure significantly. Microwave popcorn bags and other food wrappers were hundreds of times worse.&lt;p&gt;Teflon pans remain safe to use. All these other non-stick products are potential problems but it&amp;#x27;s impractical to try to identify which ones have PFOA or PFOS... so it&amp;#x27;s a good thing it&amp;#x27;s being phased out.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>genericone</author><text>Do you have any recommendations on where we could read more about the hidden history of PFOAs and teflon? These days all the nonstick pans say PFOA-free, but if they were never present in the actual pan, is it just a marketing gimmick? Like putting gluten-free on old foods that never contained gluten, or bpa-free on things that historically didn&amp;#x27;t use bpa?</text></comment>