"Inside FDA’s ‘Forever Chemicals’ Catastrophe"

"Lawyers for DuPont knew the Food and Drug Administration had a serious concern that the company’s new food packaging product might be toxic.

Beagles and rats that were fed DuPont’s grease-resistant coating for paper wrappers had enlarged livers after three months, a report showed.

The year was 1966.

Inside FDA, toxicologists were irritated. “The petition is not acceptable for filing,” they wrote in an internal memo. The scientists wanted a two-year health study of the nonstick coating and the unfamiliar chemicals it was made of.

A key chemical in that mixture is now infamous: PFOA, a notorious polluter of U.S. water supplies."

E.A. Crunden and Ariel Wittenberg report for E&E News March 7, 2022.