14 DAY TRIAL // All good products have a drawback, and Teflon seems to be no different. Hopkins Hospital researchers found a possible carcinogen used to make the material whose main feature is the low adherence in almost all the newborns involved in the study.
The compound, called PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), was present in 99% of the samples, and the Johns Hopkins team wants to find out how it affects the babies.
"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," Dr. Lynn Goldman, one of the Hopkins researchers, told the Associated Press.
"It's a mystery right now. At some point, with more research, we may be able to say something more than 'it's just there.' But we have not finished that analysis yet," said Dr. Frank Witter, medical director of labor and delivery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a partner in the study.
From what the researchers say, the newborns' hormonal system could be affected by PFOA; because of this, they are measuring the levels of thyroid and looking at other factors to determine the effects of this acid.
In 2004, the US company DuPont, the only one producing the compound, settled for $300 million a lawsuit filed by residents near its manufacturing plant in Ohio and West Virginia based on groundwater pollution, and in 2005, the EPA's scientific advisory board found that PFOA used to make Teflon is a "likely carcinogen."