Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) -- the dangerous chemical used to make Teflon -- can be difficult to avoid, as it likely coats the non-stick cookware with which you prepare meals and the paper plates you use to eat them. No surprise, the PFOA on paper plates and other common products may be absorbed by your body at higher than established legal levels, according to a former DuPont engineer.

In fact, the engineer warned DuPont in 1987 after testing showed PFOA dissolved in wet paper in much higher levels than was approved by the FDA. The response to this former employee's concerns from his DuPont bosses: Don't worry about it. We're working on it...

People must be paying attention to what this man is saying, as he testified in a recent trial may have pushed his former company to settle with thousands of Ohio and West Virginia residents whose tap water had been contaminated with PFOA.

Your best protection against PFOA is to throw away those non-stick pans and avoid them elsewhere as much as you can. But, if you must continue to use them, avoid doing so at high heat.

Washington Post November 17, 2005