Teflon: Miracle invention or slow-acting poison? Why not both!

Mark Frauenfelder

Happy Pan (1957) was the first commercially available Teflon coated frying pan. trozzolo, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Teflon was accidentally discovered in 1938 by DuPont chemists while they were trying to develop new refrigerants to replace dangerous, explosive ones used in the 1920s-30s. Rudy Molinek wrote a piece for The Smithsonian titles "T…