Too bad!

Even though the WaPo claims "Eight U.S. companies, including giant DuPont Co., agreed yesterday to virtually eliminate a harmful chemical used to make Teflon from all consumer products coated with the ubiquitous nonstick material." Even though Trevor Butterworth at Stats was hoping "that evidence is starting to count in the ongoing campaign against PFOA and Teflon" and as he points out

...virtually all of the PFOA/C8 in human blood is bound to albumin in blood plasma, which means it is not biologically available to do any damage. In fact, PFOA, being so stable, is less reactive than many naturally-occurring fatty acids. This is why studies of human exposure to PFOA – even those workers at DuPont who work with the chemical and have higher than average levels in their blood – have not, as yet, found any evidence linking the chemical to ill-health.

The claim that PFOA is "cancer-causing" is based on lab experiments where 10 percent of rats fed PFOA at levels 25,000 times the average human exposure (which is five parts per billion) developed liver tumors. The preliminary risk assessment by the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that the mode of action by which PFOA caused these tumors was unlikely to apply to humans.