The Issue
Phthalates
These endocrine-disrupting “plasticizer” chemicals are everywhere in modern society. EWG helped get several of them banned in children’s toys, but they are still widely used chemicals that pollute almost everyone’s bodies.
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The Latest on Phthalates
Environmental Health Perspectives examines the possible connection between a startlingly low male birth rate and industrial pollution among a population of Native Americans in Ontario living right next to one of Canada's largest concentrations of chemical plants. The area is heavily polluted with PCBs, phthalates and dioxins, all known endocrine disruptors.
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Most people are surprised to learn that the government neither conducts nor requires safety testing of chemicals that go into health and beauty products. Today a panel funded and advised by the cosmetic industry determined that cosmetic companies can continue to add reproductive toxins known as phthalates to cosmetics marketed to women of childbearing age.
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View and Download the report here: Not Too Pretty
Read MoreIn September 2000, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that every single one of the 289 persons tested for the plasticizer dibutyl phthalate (DBP) had the compound in their bodies. The finding passed with little public fanfare, but surprised government scientists, who just one month earlier had rated DBP of little health concern based on the scientific assumption, which later turned out to be wrong, that levels in humans were within safe limits. DBP causes a number of birth defects in lab animals, primarily to male offspring, including testicular atrophy, reduced sperm count, and defects in the structure of the penis (CERHR 2000).
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