Comment on It's on your blood!

• Rooskie91@discuss.online ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Teflon is the brand name for for the chemical Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). Making PTFE requires PFAS, which are the toxic part. Think of PFAS as little bits of chain varying lengths that get strung together to make the larger PTFE molecule.

  The argument you’re making sounds similar to something like “Fossil Fuels are safe, it’s just the CO2 that’s dangerous.” PFAS contaminated water being released to the environment is an unavoidable by produce of making Teflon. You can only make Teflon as a solid without suspending the PFAS in water first.

  Here’s a pretty good video about the history, manufacturing process, and toxicity.

  youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY

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  • Rednax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    There is one important note: you won’t get cancer from the Teflon in your pans. You get it from the PFAS used to produce the pans. This means you don’t have to throw out all your pans, as if they were made from lead and asbestos. Just make sure not to buy new ones with Teflon.

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  • ExFed@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The argument you’re making sounds similar to something like “Fossil Fuels are safe, it’s just the CO2 that’s dangerous.”

    I didn’t read it that way at all. Their argument sounds more like “there’s nuance that you’re glossing over.”

    It seems that we all agree PFAS are generally nasty chemicals, some worse than others. Teflon (polytetrafluoroethylene) is just one of the “nicer” ones.

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    • BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      You can’t make teflon without the PFAS though. It’s like saying AIDS is completely different than HIV

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      • 9bananas@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        no it’s more like saying “desalinated water is fine, it’s the brine that’s problematic.”

        which is true.

        and the same goes for teflon:

        the PFAS are toxic, not teflon itself.

        glossing over that distinction is disingenuous…

        yes, you can’t make one without the other, true, but the end product is not toxic. that’s an important difference you can’t just ignore in order to say teflon is toxic, because a requisite material in (cheap) production is toxic.

        because that’s like saying desalinated water is toxic, just because brine is toxic…which is obviously ridiculous.

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• BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s also what makes it cheap. Making Teflon other ways is much more expensive.

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• Shareni@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It’s releasing a high amount of micro and nano plastics, and those are linked to different health issues including cancer.

  www.sciencedirect.com/…/S0048969724027232

  our findings suggest that PTFE-MPs-associated toxicity may be specifically linked to the activation of the ERK pathway, which ultimately induces oxidative stress and inflammation.

  pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37419366/

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