DuPont: one of the most successful and sustained industrial enterprises in the world," as its corporate website puts it. Perhaps no product is as responsible for its dominance as Teflon. For more than 60 years C8 was an essential ingredient of Teflon. As part of a 2005 settlement over contamination around a West Virginia plant, a team of three scientists ... were charged with determining if and how the chemical affects people. The science panel found that C8 was "more likely than not" linked to ulcerative colitis - as well as to high cholesterol; pregnancy-induced hypertension; thyroid disease; testicular cancer; and kidney cancer. The scientists' findings, published in more than three dozen peer-reviewed articles, were striking, because the chemical's effects were so widespread throughout the body and because even very low exposure levels were associated with health effects. DuPont scientists had closely studied the chemical for decades and through their own research knew about some of the dangers it posed. Yet rather than inform workers, people living near the plant, the general public, or government agencies responsible for regulating chemicals, DuPont repeatedly kept its knowledge secret. Another revelation about C8 makes all of this more disturbing: This deadly chemical that DuPont continued to use well after it knew it was linked to health problems is now practically everywhere. A man-made compound that didn't exist a century ago, C8 is in the blood of 99.7 percent of Americans.