Italian Study Raises New Questions About C8 Exposure from Teflon

A new study from Italy seems to indicate that C8 migrates into food from Teflon more easily than estimated by U.S. scientists.

Although PFOA or perfluorooctanoic acid can be found in the blood of most people in very small amounts, it's been claimed for some time that Teflon was not a significant contributor to human exposure. It's also been thought that C8 migration into food from Teflon coated products was most likely to occur once the cookware had been damaged in some way or when the coating began to degrade. The new findings seem to fly in the face of those old claims.

The Italian study concludes that C8 migration into food can "take place in the first phases of container use and not only from containers abused by kitchen tools or otherwise scratched". The researchers concluded that the study does not agree with prior results because the newer study uses a better extraction system.