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Nonstick cookware, with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating, can also emit fumes harmful to birds, if cookware is accidentally heated to high temperatures, exceeding approximately 500F (260C) -- well above the temperatures needed for frying or baking. In addition, PTFE coated drip pans should be avoided because even in normal use they reach extremely high temperatures and can emit fumes that are hazardous to birds.

This link on teflon.com posted by someone else.

500F is a bit outside most normal cooking temperatures, but not impossible to produce in the average kitchen. A broiler will do so easily, and so can your range if you let it. For example, I would never consider making a dark cajun roux in a non-stick pan.

here it is again andagain and again.

here it is again andagain and again.

here it is again andagain and again.

here it is again andagain and again.

you have to look down the page a bit, but here it is again.

No, it's not a myth or urban legend, since it's discussed on Dupont's website.

Nonstick cookware, with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating, can also emit fumes harmful to birds, if cookware is accidentally heated to high temperatures, exceeding approximately 500F (260C) -- well above the temperatures needed for frying or baking. In addition, PTFE coated drip pans should be avoided because even in normal use they reach extremely high temperatures and can emit fumes that are hazardous to birds. A simple rule of thumb is: never keep your pet bird in the kitchen.

So, although they bury this information on their web page, and don't use the word Teflon (AKA PTFE), the information is there on their own web page.

(Btw, I didn't know any of this until I read about it myself in this thread.)

Because you're not wearing your kitchenware in the form of tiny teflon fibers.

By the way, Teflon pans are deadly to birds when overheated. A gas is formed which can kill your pet in a matter of minutes. Does it affect humans? Dunno. You can read DuPont's assessment of the danger to birds here.

I'd like to find out exactly what the hazards of Teflon are, especially since we just bought a Teflon-treated couch. The fabric is awesome and inexpensive, but I want an objective assessment of the health risks.

Please don't let your distrust of activitists and love of the acronym FUD obscure the issue. The signal-noise ratio on slashdot is bad enough as it is.

If you look at the pics, they are also complaining about Teflon. They said teflon stop being made by 3m 5 years ago.....except Teflon is NOT owned by 3m....it's owned by DuPont:

http://www.teflon.com/NASApp/Teflon/TeflonPageServ let?pageId=/consumer/na/eng/housewares/keyword/tef lon_keyword_home.html

And, as far as I know, Teflon is still in production.

Teflon was the product of research into friction-free plastics by Dupont in 1938. It was not a spinnoff from the space race, in fact it predates NASA.

In a DuPont laboratory back in 1938, Roy J. Plunkett was researching refrigeration gases. He had connected a cylinder of freon 1114, or tetrafluoroethylene, to his equipment, but nothing came out. Rather than throw the cylinder away, he weighed it and found that the actual weight exceeded the figure on the target weight. So he cut the cylinder in half and saw a white, waxy substance he later identified as a polymer of tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), popularly known as the DuPont trademark Teflon®:. Had he not been wise enough to investigate what was in the cylinder, this Fluorocarbon resin might never have been discovered. i>

So sorry, there is not one part of the fable that is accurate. NASA did not invent teflon, did not invent the idea of applying it to machinery and cerainly not to saucepans.

Or what about the military uses originally
intended for the Shuttle project? Was any of the
money ever put to use at all, let alone for a
purpose?

Can you say "TEFLON-pan"?

I don't know how often I've heard the urban legend that Teflon was somehow related to space research. Doesn't make it right, though.

Link

It's feels like you're on a sheet of ice, well, without the coldness. I've had one scotch taped to my desk for several years now, and it's just now needing replacement. Using a regular mousepad feels like slogging through mud compared to the Teflon Sheets.

They're probably playing this game like DuPont did with the ' bulletproof' Kevlar vests. First they came out with these awesome vests made of their patented material. All the cops got them. Then a while later, special Teflon-coated bullets hit the streets that could penetrate the vests. Know who makes Teflon? DuPont. But somehow Ice-T got in trouble for just singing a song called CopKiller while DuPont profits off the actual technology of killing cops.