Definitely worth a read.
http://www.stats.org/record.jsp?type=news&ID=528
Media Sticks Poisonous Popcorn Bags to Teflon Chemical
November 28 2005
Trevor Butterworth
Activist group plays media with whistleblowing claims. Is PFOA the new
Alar - or is this the worst-reported science story of the year? Errors
force ABC to change story, but rest of media fall for imaginary federal
safety standard, health risks
Here's how ridiculously easy it has become to spin the press. Two
weeks ago, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which has a long
history of scare-mongering and releasing statistically-invalid studies,
unveiled Glenn Evers, a "whistleblower" who once worked for DuPont
as a chemical engineer, and who claimed the company was derelict in
addressing the risk from papers coated with chemicals related to
Teflon.
Here's how ABC's Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross
originally reported the story's lede for Good Morning America:
To prevent grease stains on fast food and pizza boxes, microwave
popcorn bags, candy bar wrappers and hundreds of other food items, the
paper is coated with a chemical that's part of the Teflon family.
Now ABC News has learned that the Food and Drug Administration has
opened an investigation into its safety, based on new information and
the testimony of a DuPont Whistleblower.
The reason for the new investigation, according to Ross, lies in a 1987
memo obtained by the Environmental Working Group, which apparently
shows that the flurotelomer Zonyl RP was migrating from the food
wrapping "at three times what the FDA allowed." (Or as the EWG claimed
in their press release, Zonyl RP could contaminate food at over three
times the federal safety standard).
As Evers noted, DuPont "never notified the FDA. They never said to
the FDA, 'We're stopping our production of this product until we figure
out what the problem is."
But this is roughly like ESPN reporting that LeBron James is tripling
the NBA record for jump shots from the left edge of the free throw line
- such a record doesn't exist.
And if reporters had checked with the FDA, they would have discovered
that there never has been a federal safety standard for extractables
from paper.