Making PTFE is very polluting. However the inert plastics in our bodies come from the pans and scraping. What they do or how our bodies respond is a whole different story. Just because it doesn't degrade it doesn't mean your immune system is going to ignore it and not try to remove it or attack it. The response to it can be a cancer or an allergy or nothing at all. The particles can end up blocking something like any blockage in a plumbing system.

Here's where people stop listening and then its just a crazy person talking. But once we have a good look and we observe the details, there's no disputing it. I've personally have had PTFE and aluminum under a microscope and applied all sorts of scraping to it. From afar, it looks like it's resistant to all sorts of punishment, and it is. But up close it's a soft material, lots of things can scraped it. There's no denying that it makes particles and you can go buy a cheap eBay microscope and prove it to your self. Everything else beyond that is where you need to trust researchers and medical professionals. If they say it causes cancer then so be it, stop using the pans.

[–] prenatal_confusion@feddit.org 2 points 9 hours ago

No argument there, rub two things together and there is going to be debris of some kind.

The thing you said about the body reacting to and not with the particles got me thinking. You are absolutely right about that since asbestos causes exactly the same problem by not being degraded. It is safe to assume PTFE creates a similar effect.