PFAS Used in Grease-Proofing Agents for Food Packaging No Longer Sold
fda.gov
fda.gov
Shorter chain PFAS molecules, with shorter half-lives, have been and are still being explored as alternatives, for other use cases. This announcement applies only to the sale of food-contact paper and paperboard where PFAS was used fro grease-proofing.
The comments on this make me realize how far the information gap is that must be closed with the pubic. The media are not doing a great job
FDA is working towards a validated analytical method
that would allow us to monitor the market for these
food contact substances in food packaging.
Safe for mice? Because that's how a lot of testing is done.
Or like teflon which is perfectly safe until it reaches an easy-to-reach stovetop temp, and then it kills budgies in your home, and turns to poison in the pan?
Teflon passed, knowing it was deadly after being too hot, with the assumption that "people won't accidentally let a pan get too hot". Suuure, no one will get distracted by kids , the phone, someone at the door, etc. Suuure, no one will make a mistake in years of use!
Somewhat is "safe"?
I agree it would be a nice thing, but are we capable of that?
You and I, maybe. But our agencies? Dunno.
The FDA knew since at least 2019 that baby food sold in the US (Gerber, Beech-Nut, Parent’s Choice, Earth’s Best Organic, etc.) contains dangerous levels of heavy metals but they did nothing about it at all until they were shamed by media attention which triggered an investigation from the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy who then put out a couple of damning reports.
To this day Americans continue to spoon-feed poison into the mouths of their infant children, and the FDA has yet to even set action levels which would tell companies how much poison is too much. They keep pushing back their timeline and right now they think they might have just the first of several needed action levels finalized at the end of this year. (https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/clo...).
It's not like they only drag their feet when it comes to poisoned babies either, they also fail to act on reports of dangerous or unlawful clinical trial practices (https://www.science.org/content/article/fda-s-own-documents-...)
I don't know if it's regulatory capture, bribes, a lack of funding/support from government, or incompetence but we really need a strong FDA that actually does their job.
There are still health concerns with the different compounds, but not the FDA has to catch up and that takes years.
Boeing being the poster child for this trend, but it’s truly systemic and I feel it’s just gotten worse.
Of course it’s nothing “new” per se, but that only makes me think there is a structural flaw in our species if we elevate these killers into power.
Boeing certainly provides a very substantial positive to humanity.
Just a reminder - Chemical Companies, legally, police themselves.
We have sooooo many PFOA's, like GenX, and some minor ones that are similar.
The original DuP documents from the 1950s said that /all/ PFOS/PFOAs should be burned.
The new patents shouldn't be granted in the first place, since one of the conditions of getting a patent on an invention is that the invention be novel over what has already been invented.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreening
[2] https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/10/thanks-to-evergreening-a...
Wow thanks for the rabbit hole. Clicked around and found “me-too drugs”[1]:
> a medication that is similar to a pre-existing drug, usually by making minor modifications to the prototype […] used to treat conditions for which drugs already exist
Yep. Same playbook for sure.
> The changed version of the drug is simultaneously different enough from the unchanged version that the pharmaceutical company can successfully apply for a new patent from the USPTO and similar enough that anyone who wants to make a biosimilar of the unchanged version can still be sued for patent infringement.
Beyond! This is like Soviet levels of kafkaesque rules. All in the free market country of USA.
It's also an issue with cans. https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/bpa-update-tracking-c...
If you want to be safer rather than sorry, it seems best to opt for the glass option. Although, they are becoming rarer and rarer.
Even if it's not PFAS, plastic bottles often release different chemicals, especially when sour, heated, and stored for a long time.
Does this mean if the product is produced outside the US and imported it could still be permitted?
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-anno...
We already do this with medicine, but we seem to have nearly zero concern about foods, the vast majority of what flows through our bodies to (hopefully) provide nourishment.
Of course there are plenty of commercial bike lubes that come with Teflon aka PTFE mixed in.
Completely unnecessary, there's a movement to move towards simple paraffin or natural waxes in the cycling community. In fact, wax wears chain less via less contamination and is vastly more efficient than many of the teflon drip lubes.
This voluntary phase-out doesn't include parchment paper you use at home. It's for food packaging
1. https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-t...
The most likely replacement are food-grade silicone alternatives. Silicone alternatives are also being used in waterproofing rain jackets, etc. (see Patagonia for example, who started by using C6, shorter chain PFAS, instead of C8, but now has switched to PFAS-free)
It's also found in human mothers' breast milk when nursing.
It's teflon, etc. and it is never ever going away, we've made the planet toxic, forget global-warming/climate-change, this is going to take us out even sooner.
Elsewhere in the thread people mention bike chains but that pales skiers have been putting telfon on their skis to go faster/easier for decades now and all that stays on the snow and then melts into the water/ground forever.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/freshwater-fish-co...
Look at pubchem.