Guest blogger Katie Rojas-Jahn is the program assistant for the Food and Health program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) and for the Healthy Legacy Coalition.
With so many products available to consumers today, how do we know that what we’re buying is safe? Most of us assume that products have been tested by someone, somewhere along the way, to make sure they won’t cause us harm.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case for many of the consumer products on the shelf today.
The reason is that most chemicals used in consumer goods don’t have to be tested for their safety and the federal government is often unwilling or unable to take action to prevent harm before it happens.
The 2008 legislative session provided an important opportunity to address product safety at the Minnesota Legislature. More than two-thirds of the legislature supported a bill that would have made homes across the state a little bit safer.
But as it turns out, eliminating toxic chemicals from consumer products was not a high priority on the list for Governor Tim Pawlenty, who, despite strong bi-partisan support, vetoed the bill once it reached his desk.
The Public Health Omnibus bill (SF651) contained two provisions important to protecting children’s health. The bill would have phased out phthalates, a hormone-disrupting chemical contained in PVC plastic and countless other children’s products: rubber duckies, vinyl bibs, teething rings, and more. The second provision would have eliminated a toxic flame retardant, known as “deca,” from home electronics, mattresses, and textiles.
Both of these chemicals can be harmful to health, especially to children.
Phthalates are known hormone disrupters and have been linked to adverse health effects, including reproductive problems, the early onset of puberty in girls, and disruption to the male reproductive tract.
Deca is a developmental neurotoxin that is chemically similar to another group of harmful chemicals banned in the 1970s: PCBs. Exposure to deca in low doses has been linked to brain, liver and thyroid damage as well as hormone disruption.
Who would have thought that phasing out chemicals that can cause adverse effects would be such a challenge? Representatives from the American Chemistry Council, the Toy Industry Association, and the Bromine Science and Environmental Forum — all representing large chemical and manufacturing companies — were a continuous presence at hearings for the Minnesota bill to make sure that it was.
In fact, the opposition lobby was so strong that the bill’s phthalates phase-out originally included the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), another hormone disruptor found in baby bottles and sippy cups. Despite overwhelming public support, BPA was later stricken from the bill in hopes of making it more palatable for the Governor Pawlenty.
The chemical industry took on the same tactics as the tobacco companies did in the 1990s: they created a sense of “manufactured uncertainty” around the science. In other words, they made their own science, didn’t have it reviewed by other scientists, and guess what? Their science shows no health effects from exposure to these chemicals.
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