Nonstick pans face potential ban in New York amid health concerns

Fox News

2 days ago

Some lawmakers in New York state are looking to ban nonstick pans in the Empire State.
Senate Bill S1767 would prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of cookware containing polytetrafluorethylene, which is commonly known as Teflon.
Teflon is also a member of PFAS.
These are known as "forever chemicals" because they take hundreds – or even thousands – of years to break down in the environment.
The chemical coating is commonly used on cookware to make it "nonstick."
The bill would ban Teflon cookware – including, but not limited to, pots, pans, skillets, grills, cooking utensils and cooking appliances.
The Make America Healthy Again Commission, chaired by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., recently released a report assessing chronic diseases, particularly those suffered by children.
In the MAHA report, PFAS are tied to a harmful impact on children's health.
The report notes that "high levels of certain types of PFAS exposure [have] been associated with a variety of health effects, including immune suppression and changes in cholesterol in children."
"It is also possible for very small amounts of PFAS to enter foods through food packaging, processing and cookware," writes the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on its site.
The FDA authorizes certain PFAS in cookware and food packaging.
"Because exposure to some types of PFAS has been linked to serious health effects, we are working to better understand PFAS in foods," says the FDA.
Steve Burns of the Cookware Sustainability Alliance, a nonprofit organization, told Fox News Digital his group has been meeting with many members of the New York state Senate and Assembly.
"We've presented that the nonstick coating material used on cookware is the same exact material used to coat a pacemaker and has been approved for use on both products by the U.S. FDA for over 60 years."
"The coating is a well-studied, completely stable and inert material that has been shown for decades to be safe, non-toxic and most importantly not water-soluble," he said.
"Several other states are following the science for nonstick cookware, and we continue to encourage New York State lawmakers to do the same."
In 2022, Australian researchers said that just one surface crack on a Teflon-coated pan could release around 9,100 plastic particles.
"Given the fact [that] PFAS [are] a big concern, these Teflon microparticles in our food might be a health concern, [which] needs investigating because we don't know much about these emerging contaminants," University of Newcastle researcher Dr. Cheng Fang – one of the study's authors – said in a release from Flinders University.
Fox News Digital reached out to the FDA for comment.