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A U.S. consumer group called for an urgent Food and Drug Administration review of the safety of aspartame on Monday, but the FDA said there was no immediate need to do so despite a new study showing the sweetener may cause cancer.  Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame -- widely used in soft drinks -- might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.   "This is the second study by the same lab showing that aspartame causes cancer in rats," Center for Science in the Public Interest executive director Michael Jacobson said in a telephone...

LIKE many home cooks, I have sent my nonstick skillets to the moldy recesses of my basement, where they have joined the 1950's aluminum pots and the Dru casseroles (Dutch enamel coated cast iron, now eBay collectibles). What led to this step were unsettling reports that an overheated Teflon-coated pan may release toxic gases. DuPont, the manufacturer of Teflon, says that its pans are safe and that their surfaces won't decompose, possibly releasing the gas, until the pan's temperature reaches 680 degrees. Some scientists say that an empty pan left on a burner set on high reaches 700 degrees in...

ASSOCIATED PRESS BALTIMORE -- A suspected carcinogen used to make Teflon was found in nearly all the umbilical cord blood samples tested by researchers at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The researchers are now trying to determine whether it has harmed the newborns. Of the 300 newborns tested, perfluorooctanoic acid, was found in the cord blood of 298. "It's very clear that PFOA is being released into the environment, and it's pretty much ubiquitous. But we don't know if it's toxic to people at these levels," said Dr. Lynn Goldman, one of the Hopkins researchers. A review panel advising the federal Environmental...

A chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a "likely" carcinogen, according to an independent scientific review panel advising the Environmental Protection Agency. The recommendation included in the panel's final draft report is consistent with its preliminary finding, which went beyond the EPA's own determination that there was only "suggestive evidence" from animal studies that perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts are potential human carcinogens. "The predominant panel view was that the descriptor 'likely to be carcinogenic' was more consistent with currently available data, while a few panel members reached the conclusion...

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 25 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Wednesday a voluntary program whereby makers of Teflon and other non-stick, stain-resistant products would cut back emissions of a suspected carcinogen, a byproduct of the manufacturing process. The companies would agree to reduce emissions of perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, and slash its use in products by 95 percent by 2010, and then completely eliminate it by 2015. The non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) said the move was significant, despite its voluntary nature and apparent lack of enforceability. "We want to commend the EPA for their leadership on...

Slippery Teflon Charges Won't Stick By Gregory Conko and Henry I. Miller The uncanny ability of President Ronald Reagan to deflect public criticism won him the nickname, "The Teflon President." Ironically, now it is Teflon itself that is facing the heat, as anti-chemical groups and trial attorneys have joined forces to cook up controversy over a product that has become one of America's most trusted consumer icons, as well as an integral part of our language, like Thermos and Kleenex. The radical Environmental Working Group has charged that the billions of meals worldwide prepared every day on Teflon cookware are...

Ignore rumors; Teflon proven to be safe August 29, 2005 BY HENRY I. MILLER The uncanny ability of President Ronald Reagan to deflect public criticism won him the nickname "The Teflon President." Ironically, now it is Teflon itself that is facing the heat, as anti-chemical groups and trial attorneys have joined forces to cook up controversy over a product that has become one of America's most trusted consumer icons, and an integral part of our language, like Thermos and Kleenex. Like many product-safety scares these days, the concerns that have been voiced about Teflon are bogus. Charges by the radical...

Teflon Nonstick Science When did every commercial product, including our most commonly used and inherently valuable forms of convenience, become a dire threat? According to some, particularly those with a political agenda that often deviates from science or provable fact, everything (or nearly everything) is a potential carcinogen, environmental hazard, or secretly destructive tool. Take, for example, the recently declared war against Teflon® (polytetrafluoroethylene). The product was discovered in DuPont's Jackson Laboratory in New Jersey in 1938, and introduced commercially in 1946. Teflon® is employed as a nonstick coating in kitchen utensils, clothing, carpeting, commercial flooring, food packaging, as well...

Cancer Not in the Kitchen Though we live in a time when a cancer-survivor has just won an astounding seven consecutive Tour de France bicycle races, it seems we still spend more time looking for causes of the disease than an actual cure. No one is denying the suffering this tragic disease brings, yet there comes a point where living in fear of everyday objects transcends caution and becomes debilitating. You already knew your cell phone, microwave, and that little packet of artificial sweetener were after you, but according to recent news reports a new enemy has surfaced: non-stick cookware....

Teflon accusation doesn't stick Michael Fumento July 21, 2005 Two law firms filed a class action lawsuit Tuesday (July 19) on behalf of consumers regarding a chemical used to make Teflon called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). The lawyers claim PFOA may be hazardous and want DuPont, Inc, the maker of Teflon, to pay $5 billion. If the suit pans out, whatever is left after attorneys’ fees would go to replace everyone’s cookware, impose a warning label on other Teflon products, and pay for medical monitoring and more research. "I don't have to prove that it causes cancer,” one of the slick...

Only in America: today, a group of Florida attorneys filed a $5 billion class action suit against DuPont claiming that the company has for decades failed to notify consumers of the health risks posed by "Teflon chemicals." The plaintiffs want DuPont to spend $5 billion to replace the cookware that is allegedly dangerous and provide medical monitoring for the plaintiffs who used the cookware. The suit also demands that Teflon-coated products in the future carry health warning labels. The suit charges that the "Teflon chemical" PFOA is a" carcinogen" -- defined here as a chemical that causes cancer in rodents....

I've never posted this sort of thing before but I've been researching it and not found much real info on the net and I've always found folks here to be very knowledgable about all sorts of things so.. I hope this is not too inappropriate and that I put it in the right place. I just bought a new Toyota Rav 4 and the dealer is pushing this Teflon coating that is supposed to keep the car looking like new without waxing for 5 years. I smell a scam but am not sure. If it works as advertised, it would...

Teflon, and the products that contain PFOA, are everywhere — from pots and pans, to Gore-Tex jackets, carpet coatings, computer chips, engine fuel lines and even pizza boxes... The issue now before the EPA is whether a chemical that's become a part of everyday life is also a threat

DuPont and 3M, makers of Teflon and Scotchgard, will remove a key ingredient used to make nonstick and stain-resistant products that also contaminates our bodies and the global environment. The move away from the chemical, known as PFOA, affects just a small fraction of DuPont's and 3M's business and won't take effect until the end of 2006. The compound, being studied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a potential carcinogen, will still be used in other consumer and industrial products. "It's a small part of our sales," DuPont spokesman R. Clifton Webb said Tuesday. "We're taking this step not...

Over the past decade, state Senator Don Perata has come to be known as "The Teflon Don," based upon his ability to weather criticism of questionable financial transactions without anything sticking to him. Time after time, Perata has emerged from controversy stronger than ever. He is the unquestioned leader of Oakland's Democratic political machine, and is weeks away from taking over as president of the California Senate. But now, sources say, the Teflon may be starting to show some deep scratches. The FBI is reportedly targeting Perata in a federal grand jury investigation that focuses on an influential Oakland lobbyist...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - A federal judge sentenced a former Wisconsin state senator to four years in prison Thursday for a kickback scheme prosecutors said involved hundreds of thousands of dollars and for using his legislative staff to run personal errands. Gary George, once known as the "Teflon" senator because scandals seemed to slide off him, apologized for the errand-running but denied the other allegations involving state welfare money - even though he pleaded guilty to them. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa said George betrayed the public's trust. "A politician has to keep in mind he is, above all else, a...

<p>This week's campaign debate is all about the Iraq war, the economy, tax cuts and the CIA leak, but there are plenty of reasons to think that none of them will hurt President Bush's re-election chances.</p> <p>This is not to say Mr. Bush has been roughed up pretty badly by his Democratic critics and the national news media in the last few months for his handling of the postwar situation in Iraq and its costs, the 6.1 percent jobless rate, the rising deficit and the Justice Department investigation into who outed a CIA agent married to one of the president's severest critics on Iraq.</p>

Conservatives have gotten a lot of grief these days from various corners for trying to defend President Bush on the White House leak scandal.For example, my friend Peter Beinart, editor of The New Republic, writes about the "flurry of justifications: some plausible, some contradictory, some laughable" offered by the conservative press in the days after the story broke (or, I should say "re-broke" since the leak had been known since last July).Such scorekeeping is entirely fair in politics, and conservative explanations and excuses have been all over the map. Of course, the diversity of responses and opinions on the...

Some presidents have all the luck. No matter what goes wrong, none of the muck seems to ever stick. One might argue that current President George W. Bush has outdone even former president Ronald "Iran-Contra" Reagan in the Teflon department. This is clearly evident even after the president has admitted that WMD-less Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The same, however, does not apply to his underlings.

Bush teflon coat intact as Blair dirtied by criticsAPMonday, Jun 09, 2003,Page 6 While British Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken a pounding on the Iraq war, US President George W. Bush has worked to harvest a political dividend from it, hoping to help brush aside deepening questions over former president Saddam Hussein's arms programs. The war's outcome changed the dynamics and the thinking of leaders in the Middle East, which offered Bush an opportunity to seize the moment and step up his involvement in trying to forge a comprehensive peace between the Israelis and the Arabs. Thus Bush became...