Canaries in the Kitchen:
The Risks of Teflon in Your Kitchen
EWG (Environmental Working Group) finds heated Teflon pans can turn toxic faster than DuPont claims -- EWG tests of coated pans found that in two to five minutes on a typical household stove, heated pans reach temperatures that produce toxins that even DuPont acknowledges kill hundreds of pet birds each year and cause "flu-like polymer fever in humans." I would recommend bookmarking this website: http://www.ewg.org. Great information. If you have time, I would advise you to carefully review this website -- it has a lot of information that will help you keep your family protected from toxins (as much as possible).
In Search of a Pan That Lets Cooks Forget About Teflon By: Marian Burros New York Times June 7, 2006
Bird owners should realize that using products withTeflon coating should not be used around birds. Other brand names with polytetraflouethylene non-stick coating are Silverstone, Fluron, Supra, Excalibur, Greblon, Xylon, Duracote, Resistal, Autograph and T-Fal. Some time ago, the San Antonio Zoo in Texas lost 21 birds in an outdoor aviary. Their death was attributed to recently installed lights in an outdoor aviary. The bulbs had been coated with Polytetraflouethylene (PTFE). PTFE can also be found on cooking and baking utensils, electric cookers, portable heaters, irons with nonstick plates, self-cleaning ovens, some hair dryers and curling irons - to name a few. Ask the manufacturer if uncertain.
Self-cleaning ovens: Do not run the self-cleaning cycle on ovens when birds are around. Self-cleaning ovens are lined with PTFE (Teflon) and reach 900 degrees Fahrenheit during the self-cleaning cycle and emit gasses into the air that kill birds rather quickly.
PTFE is
odorless and invisible. Birds die an extremely painful and agonizing death when exposed to these fumes. This product may not kill all the birds at the same time. The toxins travel on air currants; furthermore, the size of the bird is also a factor. Please make sure that any cookware, bulbs, heaters / heating bulbs (even hair dryers) are not coated with Teflon; if in doubt, do not use around your birds.
DuPont Fined for Teflon Cover-Up: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will fine Teflon maker DuPont $16.5 million for two decades' worth of covering up studies that showed it was polluting drinking water and newborn babies with an indestructible chemical. It was EWG's petition that sparked EPA's lawsuit against DuPont. The fine is the largest administrative fine the EPA has ever levied under a weak toxic chemical law. However, the $16.5 million fine is less than half of one percent of DuPont's profits from Teflon from this time period, and a fraction of the $313 million the agency could have imposed. Yet another reason to strengthen our toxic chemical laws, which EWG is launching a campaign to do. For more information, read the story in DuPont's hometown paper: http://www.ewg.org/newsletter/20051215/dupont/
If you would like to add to or correct any of the above information, or would like to share with web visitors your own experiences, please e-mail the webmaster.
Photo contributions are welcome!
