Phthalates are everywhere, and

the health risks are worrying.

How bad are they really?
Phthalates are everywhere, and a tidal wave of
new research has documented their wide-ranging
negative health impacts, but what are the real
risks?

Interactive: what’s in your shampoo?

Amy
Lately,Westervelt
it seems like a new study on the health impacts of phthalates comes out every
week. The
Tue 10 Feb 2015chemicals
14.00 GMT are everywhere: they’re used in everything from household
cleaners to food packaging to fragrance, cosmetics, and personal-care products.

In 2003, researchers at the US Center for Disease Control documented widespread

exposure to a high level of a group of chemicals called phthalates (pdf) across the
general American public. The chemicals act as binding agents and also make plastics
flexible.

The CDC recommended that the chemicals and their effect on human health be
studied further, a recommendation that helped unlock funding for dozens of studies
focused on phthalates, resulting in a tidal wave of recently published reports that
largely indicate the CDC’s concern was warranted.

The CDC’s warning on phthalates also caught the attention of senators Barbara Boxer
and former US representative Henry Waxman, who included the class of chemicals in
their Consumer Product Safety bill, passed in 2008. That bill banned the use of some
phthalates in children’s products, passed an interim ban on others, and required that
the Consumer Product Safety Commission take a close look at the chemicals.

The resulting report on phthalates – the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel (Chap) on
Phthalates (pdf) – was finalized in late 2014, and despite the chemical industry’s
efforts to soften the commission’s recommendations, public health advocates are
largely pleased with the effort, a rarity when it comes to government-penned reports
on chemical safety.

With academic studies and policy reports consistently voicing concern over the
health impacts of phthalates, and consumers beginning to sit up and take notice,
regulation may not be far behind.
“The Chap report is the first major regulatory document in the federal government
that’s highlighting the extent of the new science on the risks of phthalates,” says Erik
Olson, senior strategic director of food and agriculture and health programs for the
Natural Resources Defense Council. “The fact that the commission is looking both at
phthalates as a group and at the toxicology of individual phthalates is really
important,” he says.

The CDC’s warning on phthalates also caught the attention

of former US representative Henry Waxman. Photograph:
Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Olson was the deputy staff director for the US Senate’s environment and public works
committee when the Consumer Product Safety Bill was written and passed. Between
the Chap report, a National Academy of Sciences report looking at phthalates as a
class and what he calls “the tidal wave of research that’s been coming out fast and
furious” in the past year or so, he said, “we’re getting past the phase of complete
denial from the industry – they can no longer claim that there’s no risk at all with
phthalates.”

What’s the harm?

Name a major public health concern over the past two decades and there’s likely
some link to phthalates exposure.

In the past few years, researchers have linked phthalates to asthma, attention-deficit
hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and type II diabetes, low IQ,
neurodevelopmental issues, behavioral issues, autism spectrum disorders, altered
reproductive development and male fertility issues.

While phthalates is a huge class of chemicals and nowhere near every chemical in the
class has been studied, several have been shown to have negative health impacts:
butyl benzyl phthalate (BBzP), dibutyl phthalate (DnBP), di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate
(DEHP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), di-butyl phthalate (DBP), benzyl butyl phthalate
(BBP), diisobutyl phthalate (DiBP), diisononyl phthalate (DiNP), di-n-octyl phthalate
(DnOP), dipentyl phthalate (DPP), di-isobutyl phthalate (DiBP), di-isononyl phthalate
(DiNP), di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP), di-isohexyl phthalate, dicyclohexyl phthalate
(DcHP), and di-isoheptyl phthalate.

Enough distinct phthalates have been studied to indicate that companies should
proceed with caution when using any chemical in the phthalate class, particularly in
products for pregnant women or young children, whom the research has indicated
are the most vulnerable to the effects of phthalates.

One of the first phthalates to raise a red flag, DEHP, was replaced in hundreds of
consumer products with DiNP, only for researchers to discover a few years later that
exposure to DiNP is correlated to male genital birth defects and impaired
reproductive function in adult males.

Public health advocates hope to learn from the mistakes made in regulating bisphenol
A (BPA) as momentum gathers behind the regulation of phthalates, and ensure that
one harmful phthalate isn’t just replaced with another over and over again.

BPA was singled out as the sole chemical of concern in the bisphenol group, and
regulated as such. Manufacturers largely replaced BPA with bisphenol S (BPS), which
researchers are now discovering is equally as problematic as BPA.

With phthalates, the research has come before any sort of regulation – companies are
not even required to list phthalates on consumer product labels – and legislators are
already looking at the entire class of chemicals, as well as any particularly bad ones.

‘Milking machines use a lot of plastic and DEHP is free and

very lipophilic (fat soluble), and milk is full of lipids, so it
just pulls the DEHP out of the plastic tubing and into the
milk,’ explains Robin Whyatt, professor of environmental
health sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center.
Photograph: Gary Roebuck/Alamy

No escape
Both because of their ubiquitous usage and because they are not listed on product
labels, phthalates are next to impossible to avoid. They are in household items (vinyl
flooring), personal care products (hair care, body wash, some cosmetics), fragrance,
household cleaners, and food. Even for those who either avoid these products or buy
phthalate-free variations, phthalates lurk in unexpected places.

In food, for example, even milk packaged in glass may have passed through plastic
tubes on its way from the cow to the bottle, taking DEHP along with it. “Milking
machines use a lot of plastic and DEHP is free and very lipophilic (fat soluble), and
milk is full of lipids, so it just pulls the DEHP out of the plastic tubing and into the
milk,” explains Robin Whyatt, professor of environmental health sciences at the
Columbia University Medical Center and the lead author on several landmark
phthalate studies. “So my guess would be that milk is a pretty important source of
dietary exposure to DEHP.”

Spices are another surprising source of phthalate exposure. A 2013 study, published in
the journal Nature, compared the phthalate levels of two groups, one eating their
regular diet but armed with a handout of recommendations for ways to reduce BPA
and phthalate exposure in their diet, and the other eating a catered diet consisting
solely of local, organic fare, none of which had touched plastic packaging. The study
authors were shocked to find that DEHP levels in the local, organic group jumped
2,377% over the course of the experiment. Determined to figure out why, the
researchers tested all of the foods consumed by the group and found high levels of
the phthalate in dairy products and various organic, imported spices.

“The fact is you can’t know if a food has phthalates in it – you can suspect, but it’s
almost impossible to know,” Olson says. “That makes them hard to avoid, which is
why you need a regulatory framework.”

Phthalates are used as binders and plasticizers in everything

from household cleaners to food packaging to fragrance,
cosmetics, and personal care products. Photograph:
Nickolas Muray/Getty Images

What now?
Regulation of consumer products moves slowly in the US, and that has proven to be
especially true when it comes to chemicals. Despite the recent movement on
phthalates, Olson says it is likely to be a long time before we have the sort of wide-
reaching framework that would adequately protect the public from harmful
exposure.

That doesn’t mean all is lost in the meantime. State and federal regulations have
already eliminated the chemicals from some products, and that list is likely to grow.
California’s Proposition 65 now includes four phthalates – DINP, DEHP, DBP and BBP –
under its labeling requirements, and the state’s Office of Environmental Health
Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recently proposed changes to Prop 65’s warning
requirements, which would require manufacturers to list specific chemicals in their
warnings and make those warnings more detailed (currently the warnings are vague,
stating only “this product [or building] contains substances known by the state of
California to cause cancer”).

“Prop 65 will be a driving force for change on phthalates,” Olson says. “Companies
don’t like to put warning labels on their products.”

Consumers can also take matters into their own hands by avoiding products packaged
in “recycling-code-3” plastic, products that include the vague ingredient “fragrance”
on their label, and purchasing organic products packaged in glass as much as possible.

Whyatt also recommends that consumers remove any food packaged in plastic from
its packaging and place them in glass. “DEHP continues to leech over time, so you do
actually reduce exposure by changing the storage container, even if it’s been in plastic
before you bought it,” she says. “All the DEHP has probably not come out yet by the
time you get it home. And if there’s still DEHP in there, it’s probably still leeching out,
so you can at least reduce your exposure some extent.”

“If we start by addressing the products where we know there’s significant exposure to
phthalates, and we start with the most vulnerable communities – pregnant women
and children – we can make a real difference,” Olson said. “We could take care of a lot
of food exposure through FDA regulation and toys through the Consumer Product
Safety Commission, and that’s a lot. It’s not all, but it’s a good chunk.”

‘We could take care of a lot of food exposure through FDA

regulation and toys through the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, and that’s a lot. It’s not all, but it’s a good
chunk,’ says Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense
Council. Photograph: Alamy

Retailers could also play a significant role, as they have with other chemicals of
concern. Target and Walmart both launched initiatives to reduce or eliminate toxic
chemicals from their shelves last year. Both retailers have said they will make
evidence-based purchasing decisions to protect their customers’ health. With a
mountain of scientific evidence piling up on phthalates, it can’t be long before
consumers begin to put pressure on retailers and retailers in turn push their suppliers
to find both alternatives to phthalates and ways to remove the chemicals from their
products altogether.
Phthalates can fairly simply be removed altogether from products, with no
replacement, according to “green” chemist Bruce Akers. It’s when the chemicals are
used to create tubing or packaging that eliminating them becomes tougher: “If you
want soft, squeezable plastic, you’re using phthalates,” Akers says.

But according to Whyatt, companies could be using flexible polymers instead. “There
are flexible polymers that don’t require a plasticizer – they exist,” she says. “They
haven’t been studied really, so we need to know more, but they probably do not leech
the way phthalates do. The problem with phthalates as plasticizers is that they’re free
floating, they don’t attach to the polymer, so they leech easily. If you have a flexible
polymer that shouldn’t happen.”

Despite the size of the issue, Olson remains positive. “We’ve turned a corner on the
regulation of phthalates,” he says. “They’re extremely widely used in the economy
and it won’t be overnight that we’ll see widespread phase-outs, but clearly we’ve
crossed the river and we’re now at the point of debating exactly which uses need to go
and where we can use alternatives.”

Correction: This article was updated on 11 February to say Henry Waxman is a former
US representative and not a current senator.
This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and
makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial
initiative. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set. More information.

Since you’re here…

… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting The
Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism than ever before. And unlike many
news organisations, we have chosen an approach that allows us to keep our
journalism accessible to all, regardless of where they live or what they can afford. But
we need your ongoing support to keep working as we do.

The Guardian will engage with the most critical issues of our time – from the
escalating climate catastrophe to widespread inequality to the influence of big tech
on our lives. At a time when factual information is a necessity, we believe that each of
us, around the world, deserves access to accurate reporting with integrity at its heart.

Our editorial independence means we set our own agenda and voice our own
opinions. Guardian journalism is free from commercial and political bias and not
influenced by billionaire owners or shareholders. This means we can give a voice to
those less heard, explore where others turn away, and rigorously challenge those in
power.

We need your support to keep delivering quality journalism, to maintain our

openness and to protect our precious independence. Every reader contribution, big or
small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as €1 – and it only takes a
minute. Thank you.

Support The Guardian

Topics
• Health & wellbeing
• An apple a day
• Medical research
• Health
• Regulators
• analysis