Group seeks to change how phthalates are measured

By Steve Toloken
PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

WASHINGTON (July 11, 10:10 a.m. EDT) -- A coalition of environmental groups
is urging the U.S. government to change dramatically the way it regulates
phthalates, to measuring cumulative exposure to the potentially toxic
chemicals, rather than weighing individual exposures from single sources,
such as PVC medical devices or cosmetics.

The environmental coalition, which includes Health Care Without Harm and the
Environmental Working Group, contends that the widely used chemicals should
be considered together because government studies have found phthalates in
people at levels much higher than previously estimated.

But the idea of looking at so-called „additive exposure‰ is drawing a sharp
rebuke from the chemical industry, which argues that there is "simply no
evidence that the different phthalates have an additive effect.‰
In fact, according to the Phthalate Esters Panel in Arlington, Va. Ê which
is part of the American Chemistry Council Ê one study suggests that two of
the most widely used phthalates, di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and
di-(n-butyl) phthalate (DBP), do not have cumulative effects.

„To suggest that one should add up the various phthalate exposures to
compute risk might be a good scare tactic, but it is not good science," the
phthalates panel said.

It‚s a complex topic, but one that could affect the industry because 90
percent of phthalates are sold into plastics, particularly PVC products.
The environmental coalition is trying to draw public attention by targeting
cosmetics. It unveiled an advertisement June 10 that it said will run in the
New York Times, featuring a pregnant woman smelling a bottle of perfume with
the caption „Sexy for her. For baby, it could really be poison.‰ It names
cosmetic products that do and do not contain phthalates.

The group also has a television ad it hoped to run locally in Washington,
but stations have refused to run it because it disparages some products,
said Charlotte Brody, executive director of Washington-based HCWH.
As part of the campaign, the group is arguing that regulations should be
changed, and it criticized the Food and Drug Administration. FDA officials
could not be reached.

To bolster its point that some people are exposed to troublesome amounts of
phthalates , the coalition cited a Centers for Disease Control study. The
study found that 5 percent of women of reproductive age in a sample of the
general public had at least 75 percent of the amount of one phthalate, DBP,
that may begin to harm reproductive tract development in baby boys.
The coalition noted that studies by FDA and the National Toxicology Program
in the United States and Health Canada, that country´s version of the FDA,
found that some highly exposed people could receive hazardous amounts of
DEHP from medical devices.But the reports also noted that for most people, there is no evidence of harm from phthalates.

The phthalates panel interprets the CDC data differently. Marian Stanley,
senior director with the panel, said the CDC study included only 98 women of
childbearing age. She said the exposure level in the study was shown to be
safe.