Yaël: Do you like popcorn, Don?

Don: Uh, sure, Yaël. I mean, I like a bag of microwave popcorn as much as the next      guy. Why?

Y: Because of popcorn worker lung. Over the past few decades, several workers at      popcorn plants developed a lung disease that permanently scars the airway. The      damage is so bad that some of the popcorn workers need lung transplants.

D: That's terrible . . . but what happened?

Y: First, it has nothing to do with eating popcorn . . . scientists think it has to do with      breathing in a chemical used to create an artificial butter taste. It's called diacetyl.      Lab rats that breathed lots of the stuff ended up with the same kind of lung damage.

D: OK . . . but I'm not a lab rat, obviously, and I don't work in a popcorn factory. So      do I have anything to worry about?

Y: That depends . . . how much popcorn do you make?

D: I don't know . . . maybe a bag every now and then.

Y: Then you're probably OK. But not long ago a guy in Denver showed up in a doctor's      office with telltale symptoms . . . turns out he'd been making at least one bag of      butter-flavored microwave popcorn a day for ten years. And when he opened a bag      he'd take a deep whiff of the buttery scent. So he was breathing in a lot of diacetyl,      and his lungs were all messed up.

D: Yikes.

Y: Yeah . . . the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association has recommended that its      members use less diacetyl in their products.

D: Hmm . . . maybe I'll go with regular flavor popcorn from now on.

Y: Probably a smart move.  

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