This article first appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Feb.6, 2020

I woke late to the hazards of Teflon after watching “Dark Waters.” The film recounts DuPont’s dumping of Teflon waste into the waters and farmlands of West Virginia. Thousands of people working at the DuPont plant or living nearby developed ailments, such as kidney cancer, colitis, thyroid disease and more. Farm animals died hideous deaths. It was an egregious case of corporate wrongdoing.

One synthetic chemical in Teflon’s toxic brew was PFOA (a long-chain perfluorooctanoic acid). It took a courageous farmer and a dedicated lawyer to reveal its dangers by waging a 20-year legal battle against DuPont.