Emphasis in the following article is mine.  I threw out all my Teflon pots/pans yrs. ago and have been cooking in stainless steel.  Now I'm beginning to wonder if even that is safe.  And....  the Travel Berkey water filtration system that I was going to buy today is a stainless steel tank.  Need some help here...
Kath 


> Cancer-causing Compound Can Be Triggered By Vitamin C

> Science Daily - 

Chromium 6, the cancer-causing
> compound that sparked the legal crusade by Erin
> Brockovich, can be toxic in tiny doses. Brown
> University scientists have uncovered the unlikely
> culprit: vitamin C. In new research, the Brown team
> shows that when vitamin C reacts with even low doses
> of chromium 6 inside human cells, it creates high
> levels of cancer-causing DNA damage and mutations.
> 
> 
> Even miniscule amounts of chromium 6 can cause cancer.
> Blame that do-gooder nutrient, vitamin C.
> 
> Brown University researchers have discovered that
> naturally occurring vitamin C reacts inside human lung
> cells with chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium, and
> causes massive DNA damage. Low doses of chromium 6,
> combined with vitamin C, produce up to 15 times as
> many chromosomal breaks and up to 10 times more
> mutations - forms of genetic damage that lead to
> cancer - compared with cells that lacked vitamin C
> altogether.
> 
> This finding is startling, said Anatoly Zhitkovich, an
> associate professor of medical science at Brown who
> oversaw the experiments. Outside cells, Zhitkovich
> said, vitamin C actually protects against the cellular
> damage caused by hexavalent chromium, the toxic
> chemical that starred as the villain in the
> true-to-life Hollywood drama, Erin Brockovich. In
> fact, vitamin C has been used as an antidote in
> industrial accidents and other instances when large
> amounts of chromium are ingested.
> 
> Vitamin C works protective wonders because it is a
> powerful antioxidant, blocking cellular damage from
> free radicals. Specifically, the vitamin rapidly
> "reduces," or adds electrons, to free radicals,
> converting them into harmless molecules. This electron
> transfer from vitamin C to chromium 6 produces
> chromium 3, a form of the compound that is unable to
> enter cells.
> 
> But what happens when chromium and vitamin C come
> together inside cells? Because vitamin C isn't found
> in cells grown in a lab, Zhitkovich and his team
> conducted experiments using human lung cells
> supplemented with vitamin C. They learned that when
> vitamin C is present, chromium reduction has a very
> different effect. Cellular vitamin C acted as a potent
> toxic amplifier, sparking significantly more
> chromosomal breaks and cellular mutations.
> 
> "When we increased the concentration of vitamin C
> inside cells, we saw progressively more mutations and
> DNA breaks, showing how seemingly innocuous amounts of
> chromium can become toxic," Zhitkovich said. "For
> years, scientists have wondered why exposure to small
> amounts of hexavalent chromium can cause such high
> rates of cancer. Now we know. It's vitamin C."
> 
> Hexavalent chromium is used to plate metals and to
> make paints, dyes, plastics and inks. As an
> anticorrosive agent, it is also added to stainless
> steel, which releases hexavalent chromium during
> welding. Hexavalent chromium causes lung cancer and is
> found in 40 percent of Superfund sites nationwide.
> This is the toxic metal, found in drinking water in a
> small California town, that Erin Brockovich campaigned
> against, successfully winning residents a record
> settlement of $333 million in 1996.
> 
> Zhitkovich said his team's research, published in
> Nucleic Acids Research, might have policy
> implications. When combined with vitamin C, chromium 6
> caused genetic damage in cells in doses four times
> lower than current federal standards, Zhitkovich said.
> If additional research backs these findings, he said
> federal regulators might want to lower exposure
> standards.
> 
> Zhitkovich is part of a major Brown research
> initiative, the Superfund Basic Research Program,
> which addresses the health and environmental concerns
> created by hazardous waste contamination. As part of
> this program, funded by the National Institute of
> Environmental Health Sciences, Zhitkovich is
> conducting basic research that may result in a medical
> test that assesses DNA damage from hexavalent
> chromium.
> 
> Former Brown graduate student Mindy Reynolds was lead
> author of the journal article. Brown research
> assistant Lauren Stoddard and postdoctoral research
> associate Ivan Bespalov also took part in the
> research.
> 
> The National Institutes of Health funded the work.
> 
> Note: This story has been adapted from a news release
> issued by Brown University.