My car before the babies came
I have a passion for researching all things concerning the health of me and my family. I save articles I find concerning, what I view, as the most pressing health issues of today. In this post, I've copied part of an impacting article from CBS news in May of 2010. Since this article was written, more human studies have been done to back up Congress' decision to ban phthalates in certain children's toys. For toys and games that are phthalate-free, visit this section of Amazon.
What are phthalates?: Chemicals that make plastics soft and pliabe. They’re found in all kinds of plastic bottles, as well as plastic containers, steering wheels and car dashboards, kitchen wrap, soft toys and medical devices. Phthalates are also used as slovents for fragrances, so they’re in a lot of personal care products like shampoos, conditioners, lotions, perfume, nail polish, and cosmetics. Cosmetics maker Avon, Johnson
& Johnson and S.C. Johnson - on their own initiative - are taking all
phthalates out of their products.
Health concern: Studies on humans show that phthalate exposure may be associated with genital birth defects in males as well as infertility problems in men.
Phthalates: Are They Safe?
Not plastic bottles of water or soda, but soft and flexible things like shower curtains. They're also in shampoos and carpeting.
Phthalates are so ubiquitous, we all have traces in our bodies.
Recently the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, put phthalates on a list of chemicals that "may present a risk" to the environment or human health. That's because they disrupt hormone activity and some preliminary studies show that they may be causing a slow and steady demasculinizing of men.
But if phthalates were on trial, a jury might find the evidence against them conflicting and inconclusive. And yet last year Congress took action, doing what Europe had already done: it banned certain phthalates in children's toys.
Congress came under pressure to act because of a study by Dr. Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at the University of Rochester Medical School. Dr. Swan compared the levels of phthalates in a group of pregnant women with the health of the baby boys they gave birth to.
Swan told "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl she found that the higher the level of phthalates in the mother's urine during pregnancy, the greater the problems occurred in young boys.
Asked what she found in babies, Swan said, "We found that the baby boys were in several subtle ways less completely masculine."
Dr. Howard Snyder, a pediatric urologist at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, says Swan's findings line up with what he's seeing in newborn baby boys: an alarming increase in deformed sex organs.
Dr. Snyder operated on one-year-old Griffin to correct something called "hypospadias," a birth defect that causes problems in urination.
"He's a healthy little guy who's, I think, going to get through the rest of life aiming without any difficulty at all," Snyder told Stahl.
"We hear that there are more and more and more cases of hypospadias. Are you seeing a lot?" Stahl asked.
"Thirty, 40 years ago, the best data we had then was that hypospadias occurred in about one in every 300 live male births. It's up to now about one in 100. So there's been a threefold increase," Snyder explained.
There's also been a two-fold increase in another abnormality: un-descended testicles. Snyder says something seems to be interfering in the womb with the production of testosterone, causing the male organs to form improperly. And he suspects it may be phthalates.
"You're moving in on these chemicals," Stahl remarked. "You don't think whatever we're seeing is smoking or diet or something else?"
"I think it's the chemical exposure that are most telling," Snyder replied.
He points to studies beyond Shanna Swan's that seem to link phthalates to low sperm counts and low testosterone levels in adult males.
"There's just too much incremental data that has built up to be ignored. I think it's a real phenomenon. I really, honestly do," Snyder said.
Look around Dr. Snyder's hospital and you see how phthalates can make their way into our bodies. They're in the IV bags and the tubing for instance. When premature babies - hooked up like this - were studied, researchers found that their phthalate levels soared.Who would've thought chemicals embedded in plastic leach out. Well they do, in small amounts. But studies are beginning to suggest that even small amounts can have an effect. If it is shown definitively that phthalates are dangerous, it won't be easy to get rid of them.
To show us just how pervasive phthalates are in our lives, Dr. Swan took us through a suburban house, sniffing, squirting and squeezing our way around, looking for flexible plastic: things that typically contain phthalates, like vinyl raincoats, the bathroom shower curtain and the rubber duckies.
It turns out they're also in things like car dashboards, steering wheels, gearshifts and even that "new car" smell.
Phthalates make fragrances linger longer - whether in cars, or in air fresheners.
Phthalates get inside us in a variety of ways, for instance, from products we put on our skin: they help lotions spread and women's make-up retain its color.
Swan says cosmetics alone could explain why women have higher levels of phthalates than men.Swan told Stahl phthalates can also be found in lipstick, hairspray, nail polish and nail polish remover.
If you want to know if something you're using has phthalates, it's hard to find out: there's no requirement they be listed on labels. There are so many products with phthalates in the average home, Dr. Swan says they leak out in measurable amounts.
"We've measured indoor air and it does contain phthalates, as does the dust in your vacuum cleaner bag." And, Swan says, we're breathing it.
We also eat phthalates which have been found in meat. In fact, food could be our biggest source of them: milk, possibly from the plastic tubing at dairy farms. And according to government regulators, they're in tap water, tainted by industrial waste."
So what are some basic first steps we can take to remove phthalates from our family's lives?
Here's what I've done so far:
#1 Throw away plastic shower curtain liners and replace them with washable fabric ones.
#2 When given the option, I chose wood floors over carpet. I choose wool carpet instead of synthetic.
#3 No rubber duckies or vinyl rain coats unless they are advertised as phthalate-free. We own these boon ducks for bath time.
#4 We purchase almost all our health and beauty products from stores like Trader Joes or Whole Foods so we can be certain that our products do not contain phthalates. Cosmetics are not required to list their ingredients.
#5 No children's toys in the house with flexible plastic unless they are advertised as phthalate-free. Check out this section of Amazon for phthalate-free toys and games.
#6 Absolutely no air fresheners. Period.
I have no idea what to do to rid myself of plastic wrap and zip lock bags. They are both loaded with phthalates and I just haven't found a good replacement for them. My mom, Elizabeth, has started using wax sandwhich bags for food storage, and she likes them pretty well.
If you have any ideas on how in the world to get rid of plastic wrap and zip lock bags, please let me know! I'd also love to hear any additional tips on removing phthalates from our homes.
I am not a professional heath care provider. My blog posts on health and nutrition are just my shared opinions and observations from my own life experiences.
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