It seems I shouldn’t have posted this without context
TL;DW
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yes the video is (at least partially) about Teflon, hence the cynical title
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no, Teflon (or generally big Fluoropolymers) are not the problem. Ingesting them does nothing to you, because as long, chemically inert polymers they just pass through you from one end to the other
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The problem are perfluoroalkyl acids: C8 (PFOA) and later substitutes such as C6/GenX, PFOS, PFHA, PFHxS which are chemicals used to start the Teflon polymerization. They are short-chained carbon-fluorine molecules that coincidentally mimic the structure of fatty acids, thus can accumulate in our bodies without a way for our bodies to break them down.
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These chemicals leach into the environment from factories and accumulate in everything, to the point that the whole water cycle has been contaminated (yes that shit comes down everywhere with the rain)
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There is conclusive proof that PFOA exposure is linked to a number of organ damage and cancers, particularly testicular cancer and kidney cancer, with likely links to lung and pancreatic cancer not reflected in the study due to survivor bias (they died before the study was concluded)
I haven’t actually yet seen any conclusive proof that PFAS are poisonous to ingest, however
Sure, it’s present everywhere, and I wouldn’t be shocked if we found out it’s bad for us.
But it has to actually be a poison to call it poison.
Pollutant? For sure. Poison? No proof of that yet. Just very annoying but the very principle that makes it hard to scrub out of water (very non reactive and tiny) is also what makes it seem to, so far, show no negative side effects on stuff.
It’s there but kinda just, doing nothing as far as we can see… so far
We need more funding into studies on it.
“To poison” just means to make people ill by ingesting it. PFOAs are quite well studied and are known carcinogens, and definitely toxic according to multiple studies, this is trivial to find on Wikipedia, etc so… I dunno - seems like a contrarian take?
PFOA studies linking exposure to a number of health conditions, including thyroid disorders, chronic kidney disease, liver disease, testicular cancer, infertility and low birth weight. The list goes on, those are just some.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Toxicology