I promised I’d keep you all up to date on this, so here goes…
In a story related to a post I wrote in June about the carcinogenic dangers of PFOA, a chemical used in the manufacturing of DuPont’s ubiquitous Teflon, yesterday two law firms in Florida announced they had filed class action lawsuits against DuPont, charging that the company had purposefully hidden the potential health risks of it’s Teflon product, which is used in everything from clothes to non-stick cookware. It was the first class-action lawsuit to be filed on behalf of consumers of Teflon.
The plaintiffs are calling for DuPont to pay damages to class members, create a fund for medical monitoring of consumers who purchased products containing Teflon and put warning labels on cookware with Teflon.
“The class of potential plaintiffs could well contain almost every American that has purchased a pot or pan coated with DuPont’s nonstick coating,” plaintiff’s lawyer Alan Kluger said in a press statement.
…In an e-mail statement, DuPont said it would vigorously defend itself against the allegations in the lawsuit.
“Consumers using products sold under the Teflon brand are safe. Cookware coated with DuPont Teflon nonstick coatings does not contain PFOA,” DuPont spokesman Clif Webb said in the statement.
The hubris of large chemical companies like DuPont never ceases to amaze me…if Teflon’s non-stick cookware doesn’t contain PFOAs, then how do they explain its presence in blood from the general population, in countries all over the globe? I don’t know about the rest of you, but Lori & I have stopped using non-stick cookware in our home…the potential dangers are just too serious to ignore, and if it turns out that DuPont has truly been hiding what it knows about Teflon, I’ll personally be boycotting their products whenever possible. That’s one of the beauties of a capitalist society…the power of money is in the hands of the people : )
