More than 5,000 products, including
clothing, toys and bedding, contain toxic chemicals that could be
dangerous for children’s health, yet stores still stock them and
consumers know little about their content, an advocacy group reported
this week.
"For most products in our homes,
including children’s products, we simply don’t have standards," said
Erika Schreder, science director for the Washington Toxics Coalition and
author of the report released Wednesday based on toxic chemical data
from Washington state. "Manufacturers are allowed to use just about
anything they want to."
The report, called "Chemicals Revealed,"
identified more than 5,000 products such as footwear, car seats and arts
and crafts supplies that include developmental or reproductive toxins
and carcinogens. Those include such toxic metals as mercury, cadmium,
cobalt, antimony and molybdenum. Manufacturers also reported using
phthalates in clothing, toys, bedding and baby products. Phthalates,
hormone-disrupting chemicals, most are often used to make plastics
pliable.
The Washington Toxics Coalition and Safer
States, a coalition of consumer advocacy groups, looked at products
sold in Washington state. The state in 2008 began requiring retailers to
report whether they’re selling products that contain one of 66
chemicals identified by the state as being of high concern to children.
The legislation required major companies
making children’s products to report to the Washington State Department
of Ecology beginning last year. The report covers certain children’s
products sold in the state from June 1, 2012, to March 1, 2013.
Major retailers who reported using the chemicals in their products include Walmart, Gap, Gymboree, Hallmark and H&M.
Retailers aren’t required to report the exact product, however, just
product categories. The report identified Hallmark party hats containing
cancer-causing arsenic, for example, but because of the limited data
that manufacturers and retailers are required to disclose, it’s
impossible to specify the exact party hat.
Among the other products identified in
the report: Graco car seats containing the toxic flame retardant
tetrabromobisphenol A, Claire’s cosmetics containing cancer-causing
formaldehyde, and Walmart dolls containing hormone-disrupting bisphenol
A.
The groups praised manufacturers and
retailers for providing even limited data, saying that the information
is critical for understanding the presence of toxic chemicals. Yet to
truly protect children, Schreder said, manufacturers need to identify
safer ways to make their products and stop using harmful chemicals. The
organization also backs efforts to ban two fire retardants in Washington
state.
To find out more, consumers must press
the individual retailers and manufacturers for more information, said
Sarah Doll of Safer States, which is part of a network of environmental
health groups nationwide.
“The biggest thing that this does is to
demonstrate a system that’s broken, and to ask for better protection,”
Doll said. “You can actually go to the retailer and say, ‘I want you to
ask your suppliers if these products contain those chemicals.’”
Only Maine has a similar program, but
other states may follow Washington’s lead in the absence of federal
rules. A federal Government Accountability Office report issued in March
found that the Environmental Protection Agency is limited under the
Toxic Substances Control Act authority.
Of the 83 chemicals EPA has prioritized
for risk assessment, the agency initiated seven assessments in 2012 and
plans to start 18 additional assessments this year and next, the GAO
report found.
The report also found it may take several
years to complete these initial risk assessments and, at the agency’s
current pace, more than a decade to complete all 83. The EPA does not
have the toxicity and exposure data needed for 58 of the 83 chemicals
prioritized for risk assessment, the report found.
Two Democratic senators, Frank Lautenberg
of New Jersey and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, introduced the Safe
Chemicals Act of 2013, which would give the EPA more tools to collect
health and safety information on chemicals, screen them for safety and
require risk management when chemicals cannot be proven safe.
"The one saving grace of our national
chemical policy is that it at least allows the states to act. Right now
they are shedding the only light we have on what toxic chemicals end up
in products," said Andy Igrejas, executive director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, an organization of state
groups devoted to reducing the toxicity of consumer goods.
Source:
www.mcclatchydc.com
http://worldtruth.tv
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