Since 2001, academic studies have shown links between the disease and a chemical used in artificial butter flavor called diacetyl.
"Diacetyl, along with acetoin, is one of the compounds that gives butter its characteristic taste. Because of this, manufacturers of margarines… typically add diacetyl… to the final product, which would otherwise be tasteless." This is what Wikipedia says Diacetyl is. In everyday language, it is what makes butter taste like butter, and it is also a chemical added to margarines and microwave popcorn. We all love that fresh, buttery, smell. However, what we might not love is that Diacetyl is a disease causing agent, or some claim it is, anyways.
In the years from 1992 until 2000, eight former employees of a microwave popcorn packing factory in Jasper, Missouri, ended up with the rare lung disease "bronchiolitis obliterans" commonly called "popcorn packet's lung." By 2005, some of these workers were on lung transplant waiting lists.
But, by 2006, the FDA was saying the exact opposite, that there was nothing to worry about. In a direct quote from the FDA it says, "The FDA currently classifies diacetyl as "generally recognized as safe" as long as you're just eating it, based on studies that were done in the late 1950s and early 1980s. The FDA did not look into whether there were adverse health effects from inhaling diacetyl while the food's cooking. And… has no intention of looking any further at the issue."
Even OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has been contacted by many unions whose workers are trying to get safety standards in place to offer protection.
But, part of the problem with regulating such a health hazard is, according to some agencies, the way this chemical is taken into the body – it is a food product that is both inhaled and eaten, but supposedly the only danger is when it is inhaled.
Finally, part of the argument that Diacetyl is only hazardous when inhaled is that it is also a chemical found in beer. In beer, it is used to make the beverage more "slippery" and there have been no reported cases of beer manufacturing workers or bottling workers having "popcorn lung" after years of working in these venues with this chemical.
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