By Nancy Buermeyer, Director of Program and Policy, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners
As the California legislative session races toward its conclusion, one critical bill still awaiting a vote is SB 682: Protecting Californians from Forever Toxic PFAS Chemicals. Authored by Senator Allen (Santa Monica) and co-sponsored by Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, Clean Water Action, Environmental Working Group, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the California Association of Sanitation Agencies; Senate Bill 682 would phase out the unnecessary use of perfluoroalkyl (PFAS) in six product categories: cleaning products, food packaging, juvenile products, dental floss, ski wax, and cookware.
Many people first became aware of toxic “forever” chemicals through their presence in Teflon cookware. Some of the earliest and most alarming drinking water contamination cases—such as those in West Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina—originated from facilities producing PTFE, the plastic PFAS polymer used in many products, including Teflon-coated cookware. The production, use, and disposal of PFAS have contaminated the drinking water of millions of people across the country, including an estimated 25 million Californians, and virtually all of us have PFAS in our blood. Today, companies like DuPont and 3M are paying out tens of billions of dollars in legal settlements, with more litigation pending and expected.
Despite this growing drinking water contamination crisis and the clear and growing scientific evidence of the dangerous toxicity of PFAS, which has been linked to numerous health harms, including breast cancer, the cookware industry is fiercely opposing SB 682’s provision to phase out PFAS in cookware. This resistance continues even though Minnesota has already enacted a similar phase-out and five more states are set to follow suit—well ahead of SB 682’s proposed 2030 deadline for California.
The cookware industry’s primary argument is that PFAS in cookware is safe. They claim to be “science-based,” while suggesting that public health advocates pushing for the phase-out are ignoring science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
A 2023 study titled The Devil They Knew: Chemical Documents Analysis of Industry Influence on PFAS Science reviewed once-secret industry-internal documents now housed in the UCSF Chemical Industry Documents Library. These documents showed that chemical companies knew, as early as 1970, that PFAS were “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested”—decades before the public was informed. Despite this knowledge, for over 50 years, the industry expanded the use of PFAS into thousands of everyday products, especially because these uses were profitable, regulatory oversight was nearly nonexistent, and the companies were able to avoid accountability for health or environmental damage.
Sound familiar? It should. This is the same playbook we saw from Big Tobacco and the flame-retardant industry: hide the science, manufacture doubt, and delay regulation for as long as possible while continuing to produce, sell, and expose the public to these products—all in the name of profit. Now the cookware industry wants us to trust that they’re “following the science” on PFAS?
Independent research—not funded by industry—has consistently shown and confirmed the dangers of PFAS for both human health and the environment. California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control published a peer-reviewed article explaining why all PFAS should be regulated as a complete class, including polymers like PTFE. They concluded that it is both ineffective and impractical to regulate this complex class of chemicals with a piecemeal approach. Regulating PFAS piecemeal has led to ‘regrettable substitutions’ of other not-yet-regulated but similar chemicals, which are less well studied but have also been shown to have similar hazardous properties.
Additional independent science shows that polymers are a concern for both human health and the environment, particularly when the full lifecycle of polymers is taken into account (not just the use, but also the production and waste phases). Further studies show that microplastics from PTFE cookware are getting into our food and into us. Industry efforts to exclude polymers like PTFE from the PFAS definition have been rejected over and over, in the six California laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor, in 23 other states across the country, and in the European Union.
Remember that the cookware industry is using the very same PFAS chemistry that started this whole mess. Rather than act responsibly five decades ago, the chemical industry chose to conceal the risks, leading us to the current crisis: billions in cleanup costs and escalating health impacts that will stretch for generations. Continued unnecessary use of PFAS at this point is unconscionable.
Had the PFAS producers and users acted responsibly when they first knew the risks, we wouldn’t be facing this level of environmental and public health disaster today. And the continued insistence by the cookware industry that PFAS cookware is safe is equally irresponsible.
The California Legislature—and Governor Newsom—should reject industry misinformation and support SB 682. Californians deserve protection from toxic chemicals, not more corporate spin.
